Acclaim for the authors of Dreaming of a Western Christmas
LYNNA BANNING

‘Banning pens another delightful… heartwarming read.’

—RT Book Reviews on Smoke River Bride

KELLY BOYCE

‘Boyce captures the spirit of the American West.’

—RT Book Reviews on Salvation in the Sheriff’s Kiss

CAROL ARENS

‘One exhilarating read… Take a deep breath and enjoy!’

—RT Book Reviews on Rebel with a Cause

LYNNA BANNING combines her lifelong love of history and literature in a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she graduated from Scripps College and embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at carowoolston@att.net or visit Lynna’s website at lynnabanning.net.

A life-long Nova Scotian, KELLY BOYCE lives near the Atlantic Ocean with her husband (who is likely wondering what he got himself into by marrying a writer) and a golden retriever who is convinced he is the king of the castle. A long-time history buff, Kelly loves writing in a variety of time periods, creating damaged characters and giving them a second chance at life and love.

CAROL ARENS delights in tossing fictional characters into hot water, watching them steam, and then giving them a happily-ever-after. When she’s not writing she enjoys spending time with her family, beach camping or lounging about a mountain cabin. At home, she enjoys playing with her grandchildren and gardening. During rare spare moments you will find her snuggled up with a good book. Carol enjoys hearing from readers at carolarens@yahoo.com or on Facebook.

Dreaming of a Western Christmas

His Christmas Belle

Lynna Banning

The Cowboy of Christmas Past

Kelly Boyce

Snowbound with the Cowboy

Carol Arens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Authors

Title Page

His Christmas Belle

Dedication

Author Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

The Cowboy of Christmas Past

Dedication

Author Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Snowbound with the Cowboy

Author Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Extract

Copyright

His Christmas Belle

Lynna Banning

For my niece, Leslie Yarnes Sugai, and my great-niece, Lauryn Akimi Sugai

Author Note

I always think of Christmas as a time of hope—a time for recognising and accepting our differences and reaching out to our fellow human beings. It was no different on the frontier of the Old West, when people from so many different backgrounds came together and learned to appreciate each other.

For my niece, Leslie Yarnes Sugai,

and my great-niece, Lauryn Akimi Sugai

Look for Lynna Banning’s

Smoke River Family

Coming November 2015

Chapter One

Fort Hall, 1868

Smoke? Smoke was the last thing he wanted to see. The very last thing. The puff of black dust rose higher, and Brand’s heart sank. What now? A Sioux raid on a wagon train? A pine tree struck by lightning exploding into flames and starting a fire?

He reined in the black gelding and sat studying the sky. Hell’s bells, another puff of smoke. Dead west. Not the direction he was riding this morning. Not the direction he wanted on any crisp December morning, not after the telegram about Marcy.

Back in Oregon his sister had loaded her pockets with rocks and waded into Lake Coulter. What Brand didn’t know was why. Why would his sweet, beautiful little sister take her own life? Maybe he’d never know why. But he sure as hell didn’t want to head west, back to Oregon. Made his gut shrivel just to think about it.

Another puff of smoke climbed into the cloudless blue sky and he groaned aloud. What the...? Those were smoke signals! And he knew exactly where they were coming from.

He leaned out of the saddle to spit onto the hard brown earth of eastern Idaho and reined the black around.

* * *

Fort Hall looked just as run-down and dingy as it had a year ago. He rode in past the bored-looking sentry and headed straight for the sutler’s squat stucco building. As he tied up his mount, two disheveled cavalry soldiers clumped down the wooden steps. One snapped a salute.

“Major.”

Brand gritted his teeth. He’d mustered out a year ago and now served as Colonel Clarke’s scout, but every so often someone forgot he no longer needed to salute him. He tramped up the rickety board steps, his rowels chinging in the hot, still air, and pushed through the open door.

“Jase?”

A bearded older man with intelligent blue eyes looked up from the cash register. “’Bout time,” he growled. “I hoped you might see my smoke. Somebody said you’d been spotted hereabouts. Where ya come from?”

“Oregon. What’s up?”

Jase grinned, revealing a jaw full of yellow teeth. “Seen my signal, huh? Didn’t think ya’d ferget how we done it in the old days, but ya never know, do ya? You might be gone back east. Or dead. Or—”

“Well, I’m not. I’m goin’ to that cabin I got in Montana for Christmas. So why the signal?”

“Got a problem,” the older man said. “Big problem.” He tipped his graying head toward the back room.

Brand studied the curtained doorway. “Yeah? What kind of problem?”

“You’ll see. Whynt’cha go on back?”

“Jase, I can’t help wondering why this isn’t Colonel Clarke’s concern and not mine.”

“You’ll see, Brand. C’mon, I’ll show ya.”

Brand followed his old friend through the dusty curtain and stopped short. A young woman made an attempt to straighten up on the rush chair Jase had provided, then gave up and hunched over her belly, her arms clasped across her waist.

Jase laid one leathery hand on her shoulder. “Miz Cumberland, ma’am?”

She jerked up as if somebody’d just shot an arrow into her spine, but she said nothing.

“She sick?”

“Don’t think so, Brand. She’s damned scared is what she is. Kinda like battle-tired, I guess you’d say.”

Brand studied her. No apron. Faded blue dress. Shoes that hadn’t been walked in that much. Not sunburned. That was odd. Nobody, especially not women out here in the West, escaped the punishing rays of the sun.

He looked closer. Her skin appeared pale and as smooth as cream. Even the hands clasped tight across her middle were white and soft-looking. No red knuckles, and no telltale freckles. Looked as though she’d never washed a plate in her life. A hothouse rose if there ever was one.

He stepped back and spoke to Jase, keeping his voice low. “How’d you get mixed up with her?”

Jase sighed and went a little pink. “Jes’ lucky, I guess.”

“She alone?”

“She is now. Fella drivin’ her wagon out from Independence got killed. Shot through the heart. She drove the wagon to the fort with him in it.”

“Husband?”

“Don’t reckon so. Kept callin’ him Mr. Monroe,” Jase said. “She ain’t said more’n two words since she got here. Wagon was pretty well burned up. Burial detail took the body.”

Brand leveled a long look at the man he’d slogged through the war with. “So why’d you signal me? Nothing I can do to bring this Monroe back, and you say the wagon’s destroyed.”

“Yeah.” Jase scraped the toe of one boot back and forth across the plank floor. “Thought you might be willin’ to—”

“No.”

“Ah, hell, Brand, she’s all alone. Said she’s on her way to Oregon to get married. You bein’ a tracker an’ a damn good guide, I thought mebbe—”

“Double no.” The last place on earth he ever wanted to see again was Oregon.

But just then the woman looked up. Damned eyes were like two pools of emerald-green water. Shiny. As if she was gonna cry. Or already was.

Ah, hell. He squatted in front of her. “Miss Cumberland? My name’s Brandon Wyler.”

“How do you do, Mr. Wyler.” Her voice sounded scratchy.

“I’ll make this short, ma’am. You got two choices. One is to head back where you came from. Two is to stay here at Fort Hall until a detail goes east. The colonel’s got guest quarters, and maybe Jase here could use some help in his store.”

She studied him, working even white teeth over her lower lip. “I wish to go on to Oregon. My fiancé is expecting me.”

“I can’t help you, ma’am.”

“Oh, but—” She sent Jase a desperate look. “Mr. Brownell said you might—”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Brownell didn’t check with me first. I’m not goin’ to Oregon this late in the season. Besides, I’m heading in the opposite direction.”

Jase bumped his arm. “No ya ain’t, Brand. Colonel said he’s sendin’ you to Fort Klamath.”

“Colonel didn’t check with me, either,” Brand growled.

“I have money, Mr. Wyler.”

“So have I, Miss Cumberland. Don’t need yours.”

“But...”

“Sorry.”

Jase edged toward the curtained doorway and signaled Brand to follow. “Ya might wanna check with the colonel, Brand.”

Brand’s heart sank right down to his boot tops. “You know somethin’ I don’t, Jase?”

* * *

“At ease, Major Wyler.”

Brand rolled onto the balls of his feet and stared at the photograph behind Colonel Clarke’s bald head. His wife, maybe.

The colonel tented his stubby fingers under his chin. “We wouldn’t want to leave a lady in distress, now, would we? That’s not the army way.”

“Colonel, I don’t think—”

“This is the army, Brand. You’re not paid to think. Now, you’ve got your orders.”

“Well, hell, Colonel, I’m not in the army. Not anymore.”

“Prove it.”

“Now, wait a damn minute...”

“That’s an order, Major,” he snapped. “Dismissed.”

Chapter Two

“Yeah, she’s waitin’ for ya, Brand. Ain’t too happy, but she’s waitin’.”

Brand glanced at the slim figure pacing determinedly back and forth in front of the sutler’s canned goods display. Small as they were, her leather shoes made sharp staccato sounds on the wood floor, and her white hands were clenched at her sides. Looked as if she was as mad as hell.

Well, so was he. Every bone in his tired body was shouting don’t do this. But the colonel had other ideas. His only hope was to get her to change her mind about going to Oregon.

“Jase, lay out some flannel shirts about her size and some jeans and a boy-sized pair of boots.” While the older man selected the items and piled them up on the counter, Brand approached his charge.

“Miss Cumberland?”

She stopped pacing and spun to face him. Her face had lost that dazed look she’d had an hour ago. Now her green eyes flashed with anger.

“Yes? What is it, Mr. Wyler?”

“I’m taking you to Oregon, like you wanted.”

“Oh? Have you hired a carriage?”

He laughed out loud. “A carriage! Ma’am, you’re smack in the middle of Indian country. We don’t have roads out here, just rough trails. If we’re lucky.”

“Perhaps a wagon, then?” She eyed the growing stack of clothing Jase was collecting and raised one eyebrow.

“Look over there on the counter, ma’am. See those boys’ duds? That’s what you’ll be wearing.”

“Surely you are joking?”

Brand clenched his jaw. So, Miss Fancy Drawers wanted to ride in style and wear dresses and corsets, did she? Tough luck. So what if her eyes still looked kinda funny—made his chest go tight—he still didn’t want to do this.

“We’ll be traveling on horseback.”

Her mouth sagged open and then snapped shut. “Horseback! You mean I will be riding on a horse?”

“That’s what horseback means.” His voice sounded exasperated, even to him. “You ever been on a horse?”

“No, I have not. Where I come from, ladies do not—”

“Well, they do out here, Miss Cumberland. So if you’re in such a lather to get to Oregon, you might as well get used to the idea.”

She just stared at him with that hurt look in her eyes. Then she stared at the pile of shirts and jeans Jase had loaded up on the counter. “I do not think...”

“Take it or leave it,” he said. “Or you could go back east, like I said.”

She bit her lower lip, considering the matter, and Brand tried not to think about how lush her mouth was.

“Very well,” she said at last. She stuck out her hand. “I agree. We have a bargain, Mr. Wyler.”

Without thinking he gripped her hand and shook it. Never in his life had he shaken hands with a woman. He’d waltzed with them, flirted with them, kissed them, made love to them. But shaken their hand? This one was so proper she squeaked.

But her hand felt small and warm and womanly in his. Maybe not squeaky, just stiff and overproper.

“Ya wanna try on them boots, miss?” Jase said from behind the counter.

“Boots! I have proper shoes, thank you.”

“Boots,” Brand snapped. “Winter’s just around the corner and on the trail you’ll want all the warmth you can get. Might hold those other duds up to you, see if they fit.”

Again she stared at him, her eyes even wider and greener than before. Kinda slow in the brain department; you’d think she’d see the clothes and put two and two together.

She dropped her gaze and very tentatively fingered the shirt on top of the stack, a red plaid. Jase shook it out and held it up to her frame. “Too big,” he muttered. He snaked it and two others out of the pile and replaced them. The jeans looked about right.

She disappeared behind the door curtain with the boots. Jase grinned at him and added a wool poncho, a wide-brimmed black hat and a leather belt to the stack.

“You got her between a rock an’ a creek, Brand. Don’t think she’ll be too happy till she’s broke in them boots.”

Serves her right, Brand thought. She’d maneuvered him into this—he could maneuver right back.

She stomped back through the curtain, slapped the boots on top of the pile and propped her hands at her waist. “What else?” she demanded.

He turned to Jase. “Ammunition. Coffee. Bacon. Jerky. Couple cans of beans and tomatoes. And a blanket.” He’d borrow a saddle for the mare she’d be riding, along with saddlebags and an extra canteen. Didn’t figure they’d go five miles before she caved in.

“Put it on my tab, will you, Jase? Better yet, send the bill to Colonel Clarke.” Yeah, he liked that idea.

“I prefer to pay my own bills,” Miss Cumberland said, her tone frosty. “I have adequate funds on my person.”

Brand studied her, wondering where she’d stashed it. “Best keep that fact under your hat, miss.”

“But—”

“And,” he couldn’t resist adding, “start learning to take orders. Here’s your first one—take these clothes over to the colonel’s quarters and pack ’em up in the saddlebag I’m gonna bring over. Colonel’s wife will help. Be ready at dawn.”

Her eyes rounded. “You like giving orders, do you not?”

“Got any objections?”

“I most certainly do. It is rude and officious behavior.”

Brand studied her flushed cheeks. Good. He’d made her good and mad. Maybe she’d give up this whole insane idea.

“Well, like I said, ma’am, take it or leave it. You ride to Oregon on my terms, or you don’t ride at all.”

The look she sent him could bake biscuits.

* * *

First thing the next morning, he gobbled Jase’s overfried eggs and bacon, outfitted his gelding and a sure-footed mare he’d picked out with bedrolls and his saddlebag, and strode over to Colonel Clarke’s quarters to collect Miss Suzannah Cumberland.

She was waiting on the front porch, and he had to look twice to be sure it was really her. The red plaid shirt was filled out in all the right places, and the jeans clung to her saucy little butt like they’d been washed and shrunk on her body.

He looked at her hard and his mouth went dry. She looked crisp and clean and brand-new. And damn pretty. She’d caught her shiny wheat-colored hair at her neck with a red ribbon, and the wide-brimmed black hat he’d picked out rode jauntily on the top of her head.

He swallowed and led both horses up to the porch. “Here’s your mount. Name’s Lady.”

She nodded. Brand picked up her saddlebag and slung it behind the saddle, then waited.

She didn’t move.

“Come on, Miss Cumberland. We’re wasting daylight.”

“I—I did not expect the horse to be so large,” she said. The quaver in her voice made Brand’s gut tense. Oh, for cryin’ out loud.

“All horses are ‘large.’”

“Yes, I see.” Still she didn’t move.

“You want to change your mind?” he prompted.

“N-no. I will adjust.”

Adjust! Riding a horse took a lot more than “adjusting.” What she needed to do was get on the damn horse.

Slowly she descended the wide porch steps and edged over to where he stood holding her mare’s bridle. “How do I... I mean, is there a method for mounting?”

“Yep. Put your left foot in this stirrup and grab onto the saddle horn, that little knob in front of the saddle.”

She did as instructed, and he laid one hand on her behind to boost her up. It was so warm and plump under his palm he broke out in a sweat.

She peered down at him. “It is quite far to the ground. Farther than I thought.”

“Hold on to your reins and for God’s sake don’t kick the horse.” He mounted the black, leaned over and lifted the reins out of her white-knuckled grip. “Relax. I’m going to lead your horse till you get used to ridin’.” He touched his boot heels to the gelding’s sides and moved forward. The gray mare stepped after him, and Miss Cumberland let out a screech.

“It’s moving!”

“Damn right,” he said dryly. “Horses do this all the time. Just hang on.”

He walked both mounts past the goggle-eyed sentry and out the gate while she clung to the saddle horn with both hands and made little moany sounds. God, four hundred miles of this was going to be pure hell.

After a couple of miles he pulled up and laid the gray’s reins in her hands. The gloves Jase had picked out for her were so large the ends of her fingers were floppy. He didn’t want to think about those soft lily-white hands getting sweaty inside the leather.

He didn’t want to think about her at all. Either she’d get used to the rigors of the trail or she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t be his fault if she suffered. This wasn’t his idea, and it sure wasn’t his choice.

* * *

Suzannah detested this man. He was blunt and overbearing and ungracious as only a Yankee could be. A Yankee with no social graces. If it weren’t for her beloved John’s letter, written in haste before a campaign, she would turn tail and run back to Mama and the plantation she loved.

Her back ached. Her derriere had gone numb hours ago, and the need to relieve herself was beginning to feel overpowering. Did this man never rest? How much longer could she stay in the saddle without begging him to stop? She caught her lower lip between her teeth. How humiliating it would be to beg!

But...humiliating or not, in a short time she would be reduced to doing just that. A very short time. She could scarcely imagine begging a Yankee for anything. Papa would turn in his grave.

The man—Brandon, he’d said his name was—had led her horse for an hour this morning, but then he’d stopped, grunted something and handed the reins to her. From then on she was on her own. He had not spared her so much as a single glance of those hard gray eyes. No approval of her desperate efforts at controlling this huge gray beast. Not a word of encouragement.

She eyed his lean, blue-shirted frame moving easily on the shiny black horse in front of her. Not once had he looked over his shoulder to see if she was still plodding along behind him. Odious man! Her beloved John would never, never treat a lady this way. Never.

She was concentrating so hard on the dust-swirled trail ahead of her she failed to see his raised arm and the signal to stop until she almost blundered into him.

“Water ahead,” he said. “Gotta rest the horses.”

“The horses! What about the riders?”

“Water’s for them, too.” He spoke the words while gazing ahead to a single spindly-looking tree, more dirty gray than green. Never once did he look at her. Fury battled with desperation as she tried to estimate how long it would take to reach the shade. And personal relief. Too long.

“Could we not move a bit faster?” she called.

He didn’t answer, just kicked his mount into a trot. She touched her boot heels to the horse’s sides as he did, and it jolted forward. With a cry she hurtled up level with him and would have passed him had he not leaned sideways out of the saddle and grabbed her reins.

“Whoa, girl. Whoa.” He then proceeded to walk both animals toward the tree as if he had all the time in the world. Well, she didn’t.

He pulled up by a stream tumbling over large flat rocks, and Suzannah gritted her teeth. The sound of running water triggered something in her body, and without thinking she swung her leg over the saddle horn and dropped to the ground.

Her legs buckled. She grabbed onto the dangling stirrup and suddenly there he was behind her, one hand gripping her leather belt.

“I have to—”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do. Over there.” He laid his hand on her back and shoved her toward the tree.

There was no privacy at all. The tree trunk looked no wider than a sleeve press, and the sparse branches would not screen a four-year-old child.

“I trust you will turn your back, Mr. Wyler?”

“We’ll take turns. You first.”

It was so much easier for a man, she fumed. Just unbutton and... She, on the other hand, would have to shimmy her jeans down over her hips, then lower her underdrawers and squat practically in plain sight.

She perched on her haunches with her bare bottom exposed and watched to be sure he didn’t peek. While she did her business, he brought their horses to the stream and bent to fill his canteen. He did keep his back to her, for which she thanked the Lord who created men and women.

His voice startled her. “You finished?”

“Y-yes.”

“Come on over here, then. Fill up your canteen.”

She tried to stand, but her legs shook so they wouldn’t support her weight. She kept squatting near the ground and wondered how she could pull up her drawers and jeans without standing up. She hadn’t been this embarrassed since she fell in the mud hole under the cypress tree back home when she was nine.

Think! She needed some way to pull herself upright, but... A low-hanging branch would do, but the tree’s foliage started several feet over her head. The tree trunk, that was it. She reached for it with both hands and managed to scrabble her fingers against the bark.

“Miss Cumberland?”

“Oh, leave me alone!” she cried. Inch by inch her fingers clawed their way up the trunk until she was halfway vertical. When her belt was once again cinched in the waist of her jeans she wanted to weep with relief.

“Ma’am? You all right?”

“I am perfectly all right, thank you.”

“Kinda stiff, I’d guess.”

She opened her mouth to lambaste him, but then heard the unmistakable sound of a stream of urine hitting the ground. Why, he wouldn’t dare!

But he did. He stood in plain sight with his back to her. She turned away with a huff and after a minute he called that it was time to mount up.

“I am coming, Mr. Wyler.” She took two steps toward the horses and realized she could scarcely move, much less mount her horse.

He met her halfway, took one look at her crabbed walk and snorted. “You sure as hell are no horsewoman.”

“And you sure as hell are no gentleman!” she blurted out. Oh, my! Mama would wash my mouth out with soap for that.

“You got that right.” Then he chuckled and gave her a thorough once-over. “You look half-dead.”

She did not deign to answer such an uncouth remark. Instead she lifted her chin and tried to edge past him.

“Guess I should have stopped sooner,” he said.

“You were paying no attention whatever to me, Mr. Wyler.”

“Not true,” he replied. “Maybe not the fancy kind of attention you’re used to, but attention nevertheless.”

Before she could draw breath, he scooped her up into his arms and plopped her into the saddle.

“Ow!” It slipped out before she could catch herself.

“Sore, huh?”

She didn’t trust her voice, so she sat up as straight as she possibly could and nodded in what she hoped was a regal gesture.

“Well, damn,” he said under his breath. “I plumb forgot how green you are.”

He slung both canteens behind his cantle and swung up into the saddle. “Five more miles,” he said. “Think you can make it?”

She nodded again, but he wasn’t looking. He walked his mount close to hers, caught up her reins and laid them in her lap. “Try to keep up.”

She ached to slap him. She wanted to ask how long it would take to travel five more miles, but he spoke before she could form the question.

“About another hour and a half.”

She stifled a moan. In addition to being the most insufferable male she had ever encountered, he could read her mind, too.

Chapter Three

Brand surreptitiously glanced back at her whenever the trail had a twist in it. She was working hard to stay upright in the saddle, but he could see she wouldn’t last much longer. Good. Maybe she’d think better of her crazy plan and turn tail back to Fort Hall.

But he had to admit that even though she drooped lower and lower over the saddle horn, he didn’t hear a whimper out of her. She might be hurting, but she sure had sand. He’d known women who’d be bawlin’ and beggin’ by this time.

An hour passed, and still the woman on the mare behind him made no sound. Aw, hell. She’d been through a lot, and he knew she was hurting; maybe he should cut her some slack.

Up ahead he spotted a copse of cottonwoods and a clear, rushing stream. End of the trail for today. He dismounted, looped the reins over a willow branch and walked back to the mare and its rider.

Her eyes were closed, her face sweaty and dust-streaked under the brim of her hat. She’d need help standing up.

He moved the toe of her boot out of the stirrup, reached up and settled his hands at her waist. With one smooth motion he lifted her down and moved toward the creek.

“Miss Cumberland, I’m gonna set you down in the cold water. Be good for your sore muscles.”

“Mmm...” she groaned.

He went down on one knee to lower her body into a wide part of the creek. The water was ice-cold and she jerked when it soaked up her jeans.

“This will help,” he muttered. “Just sit quiet. I’ll come get you out in a while.”

She nodded without opening her eyes. He left her lolling in the deep pool and went to tend the horses and roll out the bedrolls. Supper would be canned beans and coffee, and if she didn’t like it, that was tough. There weren’t any silver spoons on the trail.

He built a fire, boiled up some coffee and pried open the tin of beans. Then he tramped back to the creek and lifted a dripping Suzannah Cumberland into his arms. Even wet and shivering, she felt damn womanly. He settled her beside the fire and folded her hands around a tin mug of coffee. “Hope you don’t take milk or sugar.”

She made no answer. Brand lifted the beans off the warming rock and jammed in the spoon. “Guess we’ll have to share. Only packed one spoon.”

He sneaked a look at her face and bit his tongue. Her eyes were closed. She was beyond caring about spoons or beans or anything else. As he watched, moisture seeped out from under her eyelids and smudged her dirty cheeks.

He dug the spoon into their supper and lifted it to her lips. “Open your mouth.”

Obediently she parted her lips and he shoveled in a spoonful, devoured a bit himself, then fed her another. Alternating between her and himself, he soon scraped the bottom of the can. He held the mug of coffee to her mouth, but she shook her head.

When her body began to tilt to one side, he knew she was finished. Quickly he grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around her and tipped her backward until she lay next to the fire. Her clothes were almost dry.

He cleaned up the camp, fed the horses and dropped another thick branch onto the fire, then stretched out on his bedroll. He laid his rifle next to him and stuffed his Colt under the saddle he used as a pillow. For a long time he lay unmoving, listening to her breathing even out.

What the hell had he gotten himself into? Nursemaiding a spoiled Southern belle across a rugged, dry land so she could meet up with her intended. Poor bastard.

An owl tu-whooed in the pine tree and Suzannah stirred uneasily. It flapped two branches closer and called again.

“Whazzat?” she muttered sleepily.

Before he could answer, she had dropped off again. Then a coyote barked, quite close to their camp, and she jolted to a half-sitting position. “What was that?”

“Coyote,” he said. Carefully he pressed her shoulder and after a moment she lay back down.

“Do they bite?”

“Bite?”

“You know, do they attack people?”

“Only if they’re...” He was going to say rabid, but thought better of it. “Cornered,” he substituted.

“Why on earth would anyone want to corner a coyote?”

He chose not to answer, and in a few minutes he knew she’d fallen asleep again. She sure was an odd woman. It was obvious she was more at home in a fancy front parlor than the harsh, wind-scoured land of eastern Idaho. Sure was crazy what some women would do for love.

He sucked in a breath as pain slammed into his heart. His sister was dead because she had loved someone, or thought she did. Her last letter burned in his shirt pocket. He no longer wants me, Brand. I can’t live without him.

Jack Walters was his name. He’d seduced her, then abandoned her at the altar. If he ever laid eyes on the man, he’d kill him.

Chapter Four

Suzannah had scarcely opened her eyes, and maybe would not have had she not smelled coffee and frying bacon.

“I take it you’re from the South?” Mr. Wyler’s voice intruded into her before-breakfast thoughts. That was an impertinent way to start a conversation, especially so early in the morning with the sunlight just peeking through the tree branches.

“I was born in South Carolina,” she said, her voice drowsy with sleep. “My family had a plantation before the war. Afterward...” Well, she would not go into afterward, with Yankees overrunning the place. They had left the house untouched, but the fields were burned and the trees cut down for firewood. She struggled up on one elbow.

“That how you met this man at Fort Klamath you’re travelin’ to meet up with?”

“That,” she said in her best lofty voice, “is none of your business.”

He merely shrugged and forked over a slice of bacon. “Suit yourself.”

“Well, it isn’t,” she pursued. Then she found herself explaining about John. “I actually met him at a ball my father gave for some Yankee officers who had been kind to us after the war. He proposed, and shortly afterward he had to report back to duty.”

She pawed away the wool blanket she was wrapped up in and tried to sit upright. Lord in heaven, every muscle in her aching body screamed in protest. At the groan she tried to suppress he sent her a sharp look.

“Hurt some?”

“It hurts a great deal,” she corrected. “I feel as if I have picked cotton for a week.”

“Bet you never picked cotton or anything else for an hour in your whole life. Here.” He handed her a mug of coffee. “Don’t make it with chicory, like you rebs do. Don’t grow chicory much out here in the West.”

She took a tentative sip and wrinkled her nose. A vile brew, worse than Hattie’s on one of her uncooperative days.

“That bad, huh?”

“Oh, no, it’s just that...” Oh, why should she prevaricate with this man? “It is a little strong, yes.”

“Good. It’ll keep you awake for the next ten hours.”

She gasped. Ten hours? On horseback? She couldn’t. She simply couldn’t.

He handed her a tin plate with crisp bacon slices and two misshapen biscuits. She looked around for a fork and met his amused gray eyes.

“Fingers,” he said in a dry voice. “Or, if you want to feel cultured, you can crook your pinkie.” He said nothing more, just gulped down three audible swallows of coffee and reached for a biscuit. The underside was scorched, she noted, but she did wonder how he had managed to make biscuits in the first place.

“Baked on a hot rock,” he said as if she had spoken the question aloud. “Indians do it.”

“Indians make biscuits?”

“Nope. They make bread out of acorn meal. Same thing.”

Oh, no, it wasn’t. No Indian culinary creation would ever cross her lips. He munched up seven slices of the crisp bacon and scooped another biscuit off the flat rock near the fire.

“Mr. Wyler, where is your home?”

“Don’t have one. I was born in Pennsylvania, but...”

“You moved out west,” she supplied.

“Not exactly. I ran away from home when I was about nine because my pa was drunk most of the time and my momma died. Got to Missouri and holed up till I was old enough to join the army. I was fifteen.”

“I am surprised they accepted a boy that young.”

“Lied about my age.” He tossed the dregs of his coffee on the fire. “You finished?”

“Am I finished what?” she shot. “Questioning? Or eating?”

He laughed at that. She noticed his teeth, white and straight against his tanned skin. Also he had a dimple, of all things. So he wasn’t always so grim—he must smile occasionally if he had worked up a dimple.

She gobbled the last of her bacon and one biscuit and managed another swallow of his awful coffee. Then she tried to stand up. A thousand swords poked at her defenseless muscles, and she almost—almost—let herself scream.

He stood and reached out his hand, but she waved it away. “I am not helpless.”

“Like hell.” He stepped in, caught the leather belt around her waist and hauled her to her feet. “Want me to walk you over behind a bush?”

“Certainly not.” She took a step and her knees buckled.

Brand didn’t say a word, just marched her over to a huckleberry bush. He thought about unbuttoning her jeans for her, but gave up the idea when she glared at him and shooed him away.

While she was occupied he packed up the camp, saddled the horses and stowed her bedroll and saddlebag. “Ready to ride?” he asked when she reappeared.

“Of course not. I have not yet washed my face.”

He gestured toward the rippling creek. “There’s the stream.”

She stood for a long moment eyeing the water, and he could hear the wheels turning in her head. Finally she lifted her slim shoulders in a shrug and shook her head. She’d braided her hair while she’d been behind the bush. Good move. He handed over her wide-brimmed hat.

“Which way are we goin’? West? Or back to Fort Hall?”

“West,” she said through her teeth. “I am not a quitter.”

“Never said you were. Just givin’ you a choice.”

“I choose to go on.”

Brand nodded, manhandled her over to the horse, grabbed her around the waist and lifted her into the saddle. Sure didn’t weigh much.

With a sharp intake of breath, she clutched the saddle horn and leaned over it. Guess it hurt her to straighten up all the way. He kinda felt sorry for her since he didn’t plan to slow the pace today. Or any other day. Served her right, getting herself involved with a man she hardly knew.

* * *

Today, Suzannah decided, was even worse than yesterday. After ten minutes on horseback, her body rebelled; after six hours in the saddle she suspected she would not survive this journey. Why, why had John not accepted her father’s offer? Surely being part owner of a plantation was an honorable calling? Had he done so, she would now be safe and comfortable at home and John would be joining her in South Carolina for Christmas, not the other way around.

She forced herself to forget her fiancé for the moment and concentrate on riding the huge animal beneath her. Despite its size, she rather liked her horse. It didn’t talk back. Did not bark out orders. And it certainly did not disapprove of the fact that she was from the South. She detected disapproval in every comment Mr. Wyler made, when he deigned to make any at all. Which was annoyingly rare.

She wasn’t used to being ignored. She was used to being catered to, taken care of by faithful servants who had loved her from the moment of her birth. Hattie would commiserate with her over this disastrous turn of events. Imagine, her hired driver being murdered and then finding herself thrust upon this uncivilized ruffian of a Yankee army officer. A major, Colonel Clarke had said.

Only the Union Army would promote such a man. Her father’s regiment would not have stood for it. Of course Papa’s regiment had been shelled into oblivion, but even so there must be honorable men in the Union Army—just look at her John!

Before the sun had climbed halfway to noon, her shirt was sticky with perspiration and droplets of moisture rolled off her neck and dribbled down between her breasts. Even her head felt hot. She snaked off her hat and used it to fan her damp face until Major Wyler shouted at her.

“Put that damn hat back on! You want to die of sunstroke?”

“At the moment, Major, that does not seem like such a bad idea. Besides, it’s December. The sun doesn’t burn in winter.”

“It does at this altitude. Put your hat on.”

All morning he just kept clopping along ahead of her. She began to watch the way he rode. He had a loose-jointed, relaxed way of sitting on his shiny black mount, and he moved with the animal as if he was part of it.

She was making a supreme effort to keep her spine straight, as Mama had taught her, but it was an effort. Being so proper was earning her a stiff back and a sore derriere.

She was beginning to realize how different things were out here in this godforsaken country. Burning sun. Few trees. Scrawny bushes. And some kind of screechy birds that seemed to be following them.

And only the occasional creek. Already her canteen was practically empty, and surely the horses must be thirsty? She studied the baked earth as she passed over it. All at once Mr. Wyler was there beside her.

“Another hour and we’ll stop to water the horses.”

He was still worried about the horses, not the people? All she could manage was a nod. Her throat felt so dry and dust-clogged she doubted she could utter a word.

“Here.” He shoved a red bandanna into her hand. “Dust’s getting bad. Tie this over your nose and mouth.”

She did as he directed, but still he did not ride on ahead.

“Better yet, stay beside me.”

Again she nodded, and he fell in next to her. But he did not talk. Men out here were definitely not good conversationalists.

The wind picked up. Her eyes teared as flecks of dirt scratched under her lids. She dribbled the last of the water from her canteen into her cupped palm and tried to splash it into her eye sockets. He watched her for a few minutes, then ostentatiously wet his own bandanna, a blue one, with his canteen and wiped his eyes with it.

Oh.

“Don’t use too much water,” he ordered. “The stream up ahead might be dried up.”

Her spirits plummeted. “What will we do then?”

“Rest the horses and ride on.”

“When do we stop for lunch?”

He shot her a hard look. “When I say so.”

Goodness, he was gruff! She would bet the contents of her piggy bank he had never been...

“Are you married, Mr. Wyler?”

“Nope.”

“Were you ever married?”

“Nope.”

Why was she not surprised? He was the most unsociable male she had ever had the bad luck to encounter.

“The next question most folks ask is why not?”

She felt his gaze on her and she stiffened. “I see.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Very well, I will ask. Why are you not married?” And if you say it is none of my business I will scream good and loud.

“Never met a woman I couldn’t live without.”

She stifled a laugh. She would wager there had been legions of them. “Possibly the candidates felt the same,” she retorted.

His laugh startled a chattering squirrel on a pine branch.

“Possibly,” he allowed.

Suddenly he drew up and pulled a long shiny rifle from the leather scabbard at his side. “Rein in,” he murmured. “And don’t move.”

Her heart kicked hard against her rib cage. “What is it?”

“Hush up!”

Well!

He aimed the rifle at something off to the left and waited so long she thought he was just pretending. Then he squeezed the trigger, and a deafening crack sounded next to her ear. Her horse jerked and sidestepped. His did not move a single muscle.

“Supper,” he intoned. “Stay here.” He slid the gun back into the case and stepped his horse forward.

She pressed her lips together. Stay here. Go there. Do this. Do that. The man was impossible. No wonder he wasn’t married.

She watched him dismount and bend to pick up something off the ground. When he returned, a limp furry creature hung from one hand. A spot of crimson spread across its neck, and blood dripped from the wound onto the ground.

He shot her a glance and saw her shock, but he only shrugged. “Let’s move out.”

Chapter Five

Watching Suzannah out of the corner of his eye, Brand knew she was so exhausted she could barely stay in the saddle. The stream should be just over the next hill, but he wondered if she could hold on that long.

“You all right?” he ventured.

Her chin came up. “I am quite all right, thank you.”

But she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Maybe the glare. Or maybe she was holding on with the last of her strength.

He didn’t like her much, but he had to admire her guts. Except she wouldn’t say “guts.” She’d have some fancy-ass term like courage. Or maybe perseverance. Yeah, she’d like that one. More syllables.

By the time they made camp and he’d fed the horses and wiped them down, she had settled herself beside the stream with her bare feet in the water. Her head drooped onto her bent knees. One thing he’d say about the lady from the Southern plantation, she didn’t complain. In fact, she’d hardly said a word since he shot the rabbit.

He dressed it quickly, skewered the cut-up parts on green willow sticks and propped them over the fire. Then he set the coffeepot on a flat rock close to the flames and unrolled their bedrolls.

He eyed the rippling stream. After forty miles of chaparral and up-and-down trails, he was so hot and sweaty it didn’t take but two seconds to decide on a bath.

“Gonna walk downstream a ways,” he said as he passed behind her hunched-over frame. She didn’t move, but a muffled sound came from between her knees.

“Coffee’ll be ready pretty quick. Supper, too. You hungry?”

Another sound, maybe a ladylike groan. He took it for a yes.

An hour later she was still sitting with her feet in the creek, but she’d straightened up some. He stopped beside her.

“Blisters?”

“I didn’t look. All I know is my feet feel as if I have been dancing a reel on hot coals.”

“Dry ’em off. I’ll take a look.”

“Oh, no, I—”

“Don’t argue.” He squatted beside her. “Give me your foot.”

Suzannah lifted one foot out of the water and instantly he took possession of it, running his warm hands over her instep, her toes. He bent his head and rubbed his thumb along her raw heel.

“Yep, got a blister. Big as a four-bit piece. I’ll get some liniment.” He picked up her other foot and studied that, as well. “Mighty delicate feet. I’d wager you haven’t done much walking. Got two messed-up heels.”

He rummaged in his saddlebag and returned with a bottle of brown liquid. The label said Horse Liniment. He crouched next to her, but she shrank away.

“I do not think horse liniment is a proper medicine for a human foot, Mr. Wyler.”

“Maybe not, but it’s what I’ve got. And it’s needed.” He shook the bottle and grasped her foot. “By the way, my name’s Brand. Might as well use it since we’re, uh, traveling together.” He uncorked the liniment and smoothed some over one raw heel, then the other.

“Leave your boots off for a few hours.”

A soothing warmth settled over her abraded skin, and she sighed with pleasure.

“Better?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He rose abruptly and tramped over to the fire pit. “Come and get it.”

She hobbled the few yards to the fire, smelled the coffee and roasting meat, and tensed her stomach muscles to stop the rumbling. She’d had two desiccated biscuits at noon; now she was so hungry she could eat anything, even a... She swallowed hard. A dead rabbit. She sat near the fire and he handed her an unidentifiable hunk of roasted meat on a stick.

“Careful, it’s hot.”

“Oh, I do hope so. I do not think I could face a raw piece of rabbit.”

“You could if you were hungry enough.”

“All my life I have had plenty to eat—until the war, that is. Then we had to scrounge and improvise.”

“Yeah? What did you improvise?”

She looked off toward the pinkish-orange sky where the sun was sinking behind a mountaintop. “Coffee. We made coffee from roasted acorns. We ate all the chickens, even the rooster, and when there were no more eggs, Sam, our overseer, found birds nests with eggs in them. Quail, I think they were. After that, we ate the quail, too.”

“You ever wonder whether fighting the war made sense?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I wondered that every single day for four years.”

He sent her an intent look, his speared rabbit piece halfway to his mouth. Unguarded, his eyes changed from hard gray steel to something softer, dry moss, perhaps. She wondered suddenly what he saw in her face.

“You miss your life in the South?”

“Yes, I do. I guess you might say I am...a little homesick.”

“You ever wonder why you’re chasin’ all over hell and gone after a Northerner?”

She could not answer that, at least not truthfully. If John had agreed to move to South Carolina, she would not be here.

He poured two mugs of coffee and set one beside her. “Don’t answer that. Whatever the reason, you’re here now, and I’m stuck with you.”

“And I,” she said sharply, “am stuck with you. I do not like you very much, Mr. Wyler. And I am quite sure you do not like me.”

They finished their meal in silence so heavy it felt as if the air weighed more than a loaded wagon. After supper she rolled herself up in the wool blanket, rested her head on her saddle, and closed her eyes to shut out the sight of Brand Wyler.

The wind sighed through the trees. She listened for a coyote’s call so it wouldn’t startle her as it had that first night, but all she heard was the fire popping out an occasional spark. How many days must she endure this man’s company? Four hundred miles, the colonel had said. At forty miles per day, that meant ten days on the trail with Mister Gruff and Bossy.

Goodness, it had been two. In eight more days she would be completely undone.

* * *

In the morning Brand had to shake her awake. When she poked her head out of the blanket she’d burrowed in he noticed her braid had come undone; her hair curled around her face and straggled down to her shoulders. It was the color of gold and looked as soft as dandelion fluff. Made his hands itch to lace his fingers through it.

She opened her eyes, found him staring at her and popped up like a jack-in-the-box. He jerked his gaze back to the coffeepot. Her voice stopped him cold.

“We will travel another forty miles today, I assume.”

“Forty miles? You think we can ride forty miles every day?”

She blinked those unsettling green eyes. “Yes, of course. Why ever not?” She crawled out of her bedroll and stood up. “I calculated it all out last night. Four hundred miles divided by forty is ten. It will take ten days to get to Fort Klamath.”

“Like hell it will.”

Undaunted, she poured herself some coffee and stood blowing on it. A good ten minutes dragged by while he considered how to tell her the facts of life on an iffy trail through the mountains. The more he thought about it, the madder he got. This pampered greenhorn thought they could just sashay over to Fort Klamath as though it was an afternoon buggy ride? She sure as hell had a bunch of learning to do.

“Well?” she said. “You have not answered my question, Mr. Wyler. Why can’t we reach the fort in ten days?”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re up against, do you? Hell’s bells, lady, you don’t have the sense God gave a goose. You have—”

Without thinking, Suzannah dashed her coffee into his face. “A quick temper,” she said with satisfaction. The coffee dripped off his chin and soaked his shirt.

Without blinking he began to undo the buttons, then shrugged it off over his head, wadded it up and tossed it at her. “Wash it out,” he ordered. He tipped his head toward the creek.

She stared at his bare chest. He was as lean and brown as a hazelnut, with rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat anywhere.

His eyes bored into hers and her anger bubbled up anew.

“I would press it as well,” she said in a voice laden with poison, “but I did not pack a sadiron.”

“Stop talking and start washing,” he ordered. “Go on.” He gestured at the creek. “Get to it.”

Twenty minutes later she smacked the sodden bundle against his chest and propped her hands at her waist. Without even blinking he unfolded the laundered shirt, shook it out and pulled it on sopping wet.

“It’ll dry,” he remarked, anticipating her comment. “Might wash your own shirt out as well,” he said. “Must be...uh...dirty.”

“It is no such thing! How dare you insinuate—”

“I’m not insinuating, I’m smelling.”

“Oh.”

She could hear him chuckle. How she detested that sound!

“Take it off,” he said. “I’ll turn my back.”

She would not undress in front of this man. But he stood in front of her, waiting, and she knew he wasn’t going to move until she did what he said. She reached one hand to her top shirt button and hesitated. The look in his eyes grew unsettlingly warm.

“Go on,” he said softly. “I know you’re wearing underclothes, and I’ve seen women’s duds before.”

“Turn around,” she said sharply.

He pivoted on one boot heel and propped his hands on his lean hips.

“You are no gentleman, Mr. Wyler,” she said to his broad back.

“I don’t have to be.”

“If you want my cooperation, it would help if you were at least polite.”

“Just for the record, Miss Cumberland, out here on the trail all I have to be is prepared for anything, and—” he started a gusty whistle between his teeth “—patient as a damn saint.”

She made quick work of rinsing out her shirt and had it buttoned back on before he finished the second verse. “That’s a song sung by some of the workers on the plantation,” she said uncomfortably.

“So?” One eyebrow quirked. “You never sang ‘Oh, Susanna’ in school?”

“Certainly not. I had tutors. Besides, I was not allowed to sing except in church.”

“Bet you didn’t have much fun growing up, didja?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it so fast her teeth clicked. No, she had not had fun. She had played with the young children on the plantation until one day Mama put a stop to it, and from then on she spent all her free time on lessons in deportment and learning how to give a proper tea party.

Until the war. After the war there was no reason for tea parties.

Brand tried not to look too hard at the outline of her breasts where the wet shirt was plastered to her skin. She wasn’t much fun, but she sure was pretty.

“Mount up,” he barked. “Got a long ride ahead.”

When she saluted smartly he laughed out loud. Maybe he was wrong about the fun part.

Chapter Six

By midafternoon they still had not stopped to eat or rest the horses, or do any of the things he had done the previous day. Suzannah was too tired to ask why, and anyway, she thought she knew. Mr. Wyler was trying his darnedest to get her to turn back.

Well, she would not. She would pull up her socks and grit her teeth and keep going just to spite him. And, of course, to reach Fort Klamath and her beloved John. Her arrival would be such a surprise for him, a real Christmas present.

Her fiancé would never, ever treat her in such an inhumane manner. John was a thousand times more gentlemanly than Major Brandon Wyler. Her fiancé might be a Northerner and only a lieutenant in the army, but he was a far, far better man. And not only that—

Suddenly Mr. Wyler halted his horse and raised his hand. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation of a meal at last.

“I hope we are stopping for lunch,” she ventured.

He did not answer, just dismounted and walked back past her a good thirty paces, studying the ground. Then he straightened and stood looking off toward the hills, his eyes narrowed. With a shake of his head he strode back to his horse and slipped the rifle out of the leather case.

Oh, she did hope it was another rabbit! She was so hungry she would eat it half-cooked. Or even not cooked.

But he did not raise the gun or aim it at anything. He just stood without moving, looking back the way they had come.

Suzannah shifted in her saddle. “What is wrong?” she called.

“Shut up!” he hissed. Still he did not move, and then he slowly raised the rifle, pointed it at something off to their right and sighted down the barrel. The back of her neck began to prickle.

Minutes passed and nothing happened except for the raucous cry of a crow somewhere over her head. She squinted her eyes and peered in the direction the gun barrel was pointed, but she could see nothing but scrubby brush and sparse clumps of trees.

And then she noticed a faint puff of gray dust far off in the distance. It seemed to be moving, and abruptly Mr. Wyler lifted his rifle and walked back to the horses.

“We’re being followed.”

Her body went cold. “What? Are you sure?”

He pinned her with a look that straightened her spine. “Lady, if I say someone’s following us, you can bet your diamond earrings there’s a rider on our trail.”

“But who is it?”

“Don’t know.” He swung into the saddle and positioned his horse nose to tail with hers. “Do you know who shot your driver, Mr. Monroe?”

“N-no.”

“Hate to ask this, Suzannah, but what did the wound look like?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Was there more than one shot? Where did the bullet enter? Was the flesh clean or ragged around the—”

The color left her face and Brand broke off.

“He was sitting on the driver’s bench,” she said unsteadily, “driving the oxen, and I heard a crack and he tipped over to one side and fell off onto the ground. I climbed down and...and there was a lot of blood. I dragged him to the wagon and I...I don’t know how I got him inside, but I did.”

“You see anybody?”

“No. I was inside the wagon when it happened.”

“Did you hear more than one gunshot?”

“Y-yes. Three, perhaps. Why are you asking all these questions?”

“Trying to figure out who killed Monroe. And why. Who knew that you were carrying a large amount of money?”

“Mr. Monroe did. I paid him in cash, in advance.”

“In private? Did anyone see the transaction?”

“I don’t think so. It took place at the bank in Independence.”

Brand nodded. “Pretty public place, the bank in Independence.”

“Could it have been Indians?”

“Indians would have whooped and hollered and probably taken the man’s scalp. And you.”

“Me!”

He leveled a scathing look at her. “Well, hell, lady, think about it! A pretty woman way out on the plain. Shouldn’t have to paint you a picture.”

“Oh. Well.” She was quiet for a long moment. “Then who do you think it was?”

“Had to be some lowlife out to steal some money. Probably followed your wagon train all the way from Missouri, hanging back until Monroe got separated from the others.”

Brand wondered why whoever it was hadn’t closed in on her and just taken what they wanted. Something must have scared them off—Indians, maybe. Now he figured whoever was following them would still be hanging back, trying to catch them unawares. Up ahead was scrubland, then the trail started climbing over rocky ground into the mountains. They didn’t have much time.

“Suzannah, think you could get that horse of yours to go a little faster?”

“I suppose so. How much faster?”

“We’re going to try to outrun whoever’s behind us.”

“But—”

“No time for buts. Come on.” He wheeled his mount and kicked it into a trot, then looked behind him to watch her. When he saw her gig the mare into a canter, he touched the black with his heel and broke into a gallop. He could tell she didn’t know how to run a horse full-out, because the mare’s hoofbeats flagged, then sped up, then flagged again. By some miracle she managed to keep up.

He prayed she wouldn’t lose her nerve. The trail started climbing, then veered into a section of large flat rocks. Her horse’s hooves clattered right behind him and he had to smile. She was probably terrified, but the girl was no coward. A kernel of admiration lodged in his brain.

They climbed up a mountainside so steep the horses began to slow and stumble. He shot a glance at Suzannah behind him and smiled again. Her face was white and set, but she wasn’t falling behind.

More rocks, and more struggle for the horses, and then the trail suddenly leveled out at the entrance to a cave. Bear den, probably. Or an Indian hideout. Didn’t matter. He pulled his gelding to a halt, dropped out of the saddle and waited for Suzannah. When she trotted up, he grabbed for the mare’s bridle.

“Whoa, girl. Easy, now.”

Suzannah’s breathing was coming in hoarse gasps. He waited until she could talk, then signaled her to dismount.

“We’ll hole up here,” he said.

“What? Where?” She leaned over the saddle horn, panting hard.

“In that cave. Horses, too. Hurry up.”

She slid from the saddle like a sack of wheat. He grabbed the reins out of her hand and led both horses to the mouth of the cave.

“Inside,” he ordered. “Quick.” He laid his free arm across her shoulders to hurry her up. She was shaking so hard she could scarcely make her legs work, but she managed to stumble to the cave entrance.

“It’s dark in there!”

“Yeah. Move it!”

She shrank back. “Are...are there wild animals in there?”

He gave her a little shove forward. “Only in the winter.”

She took two steps past the opening and froze, her eyes huge with fear. “But it is winter.”

“Keep moving,” he ordered. He maneuvered the two horses under an overhanging rock near the cave.

“Mr. Wyler, I do not think—”

“Right. Don’t think. Just do what I say, and do it quick. Get the saddlebags and the bedrolls and stash them inside.” He lifted off both saddles and set them just inside the entrance, then grabbed his rifle and a length of rope. Quickly he hobbled the horses, caught his saddlebag as Suzannah lifted it off and dug in the depths for two handfuls of oats.

The cave smelled musty, but it was clean except for wisps of dried grass here and there. Dark as Hades, but safe. When his breathing returned to normal he assessed their refuge.

He assessed Suzannah, too. She’d moved only a few steps past the entrance, and he could see that her body was still shaking. Her breathing was so jerky he thought she might be crying, but a glance at her face told him she wasn’t. At least not yet.

He moved forward and laid one hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be safe here. Not comfortable, maybe, but alive come morning.”

She just stared at him. “And what do we do in the morning?”

He thought her lips were trembling, but in the dimness he couldn’t be sure. “In the morning we’ll find out who’s following us.”

“And tonight?” she said in a small voice.

He hesitated. She was plenty scared, but she wasn’t crumpling up into a pile of jitters. “Tonight we count our blessings and give thanks to the god of caves. Then we eat supper and get some sleep.”

“Can you build a fire? It is extremely dark in here.”

“No fire. Can’t risk someone seeing the smoke.”

“H-how will we keep warm?”

An inappropriate thought popped into his mind. He squashed it flat before it made a permanent home there and swallowed over the sudden thickness in his throat.

“We’ll manage.”

For their supper he handed out cold biscuits and slices of jerky, which he pared off with his jackknife.

After her first bite, she wrinkled her nose. “I don’t guess I care for jerky.”

“Learn to like it.” He handed her his canteen. “Let it soften up in your mouth before you try to chew it.”

Suzannah knew she should be grateful she was alive and sheltered, at least for the time being, and that her stomach was reasonably full. It was strange how having very little in the way of comforts made her value all the more what she had taken for granted in Charleston. She supposed there was a lesson in that, but she was too exhausted to think what it was.

Brand dropped her saddle at her feet. “Where do you want your bedroll spread out?”

“Oh. I—” Despite the impropriety, she wanted it as close to his as possible.

Oh, my. In the past few days she had done things she had never before dreamed possible. At first she had been frightened at being alone on horseback with a strange man. She was also angry, but she guessed that was based on fear. Now she had the oddest sensation, as if her skin was stretching and stretching into some new and different creature.

He rolled his blanket out on the hard floor of the cave, looked at it for a long moment, then without a word stalked outside and returned with an armload of pine boughs. He spread them out, laid his blanket on top, and arranged her bed in the same way. Right next to his.

She should be outraged at his presumption. But she wasn’t. She should be self-conscious about sleeping next to a man to whom she was not married. But she wasn’t.

Something was most assuredly happening to her! She thought about it for the next hour as the cave gradually grew dim and then pitch-black and cold. This was like a dream, but rather than being a terrible nightmare, it was almost an exciting adventure.

She smiled up into the dark. “I miss your coffee.”

“Yeah.” After a long silence he rose and positioned both horses to block the cave entrance, then shoved his saddle to the head of his bed.

“Mr. Wyler? Do you think anyone could find us here?”

“Nope.”

Brand drew in a long, slow breath and stretched out on his blanket. God help him, he didn’t want to think about what was outside this cave, just what was inside. Suzannah and himself.

One of the horses nickered softly. He could still taste the spicy tang of jerky on his tongue, feel the rustle and crunch of the pine boughs under his body. He propped his head on his folded arms.

He could smell Suzannah’s hair, kind of sweet, like violets. He liked the way she smelled, even when her skin was sweaty.

“I miss seeing the stars,” she said abruptly.

Brand did not answer.

Sure was quiet up here. He listened hard to the sighing of the wind in the pines. Sometimes the sound made him feel lonely, and sometimes, like now, it made his throat feel so tight it was hard to swallow.

Except for his baby sister, Marcy, he’d never really understood women. He could never grasp how they could be so blind, how they could marry someone because of some kind of romantic dream, giving their life over to someone else just to satisfy an itch.

Maybe that was why he’d never been tempted to get too close to a woman. At least not a respectable woman.

Marcy had only been four years old when he’d lit out. When she turned twelve, he went back for her, to get her away from Pa. She boarded with their aunt Sally in Klamath Falls until she got engaged, and then...

He closed his eyes.

His horse moved restlessly at the mouth of the cave and Suzannah stirred in her sleep. He rolled sideways to look at her, but she was facing away from him, hunched up like a kid. Watching her, something flickered in his chest, something warm and insistent, like the feeling he got when he was hungry or craving a shot of red eye after a long ride.

He guessed he’d been without a woman for too long, otherwise he wouldn’t be watching this one so closely. But he was watching her. In fact, he’d been acutely aware of her ever since they’d ridden away from Fort Hall.

A small animal of some kind made a skittery noise outside the cave and Suzannah murmured something in her sleep.

“It’s okay,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Maybe a squirrel.” Very carefully he curled his frame around hers, and when she muttered uneasily in her sleep he laid his arm across her waist and pulled her backward, tucking her hip into his groin.

Big mistake. Her warm body made his breath catch and damned if he didn’t start to get hard. Then she made things worse by wriggling her curvy little butt tighter against him.

He clenched his jaw. Don’t think about it. He shut his eyes and concentrated on taking in air as slowly as possible. And for God’s sake, don’t move.

Never should have listened to the wind. All at once he felt more alone than ever before in his life. Somewhere deep inside he understood something he’d never confronted before—being connected to someone, someone he cared about, was damn dangerous. His sister had given her heart to someone she loved and died because of it.

Not for him. He would never hand his heart over to another human being. Never. He might feel lonely at times, but that was a damn sight better than the agony of losing someone.

But God, Suzannah felt good pressed up against him.

He needed to think about something else, anything else.

Who was trailing them? And what would he do when he figured out who it was?

Chapter Seven

Suzannah dragged her tired body into the saddle and gripped the reins in her floppy-fingered leather gloves. Breakfast had been half a dry biscuit and more cold, tough slices of jerky, but no coffee. She realized with a jolt that she had started every morning since she was thirteen years old with at least one cup of coffee, and sometimes two. The absence of the brew this morning had left her headachy and short-tempered.

She wondered if Brand felt the deprivation as keenly as she did. Probably not. Nothing seemed to bother the man riding ahead of her, his wide-brimmed sand-colored hat tipped at a jaunty angle over his dark head, his broad shoulders relaxed. At least he wasn’t humming “Oh, Susanna.”

But he was setting a bone-jarring pace on the narrow path down the mountain. Only once in the past hour had he glanced back to check on her; she could tumble off the edge of the cliff and he would never know.

“Lean back in the saddle when you’re goin’ downhill,” he called. “Helps the horse keep its balance.”

She nodded, but he had already refocused his gaze on the trail ahead. She pressed her lips together and swallowed back the angry words that threatened to tumble out of her mouth.

When the trail leveled out near the bottom, Brand drew rein and waited for her to catch up. “Whoever is following us is ahead of us now,” he said. “I’ve got a plan.”

Suzannah blinked. This was the first time he had shared any information about anything with her. Why now? All at once a terrible suspicion crept into her mind.

“We are in danger, aren’t we?”

He wouldn’t look at her, and that told her more than any words he might come up with.

“Well, are we?” she persisted.

“Yeah, maybe.” His lips were unsmiling, his eyes were troubled and he had a strange, set look on his tanned face.

“What is it?” she said. “What is wrong?”

“Need to find out who’s following us. That means—” He broke off and spit to one side. “Oh, hell, Suzannah, that might mean putting you in danger.”

“How? I mean, what would doing whatever it is you propose require?”

He rolled his lower lip inward over his teeth and heaved out a sigh. “Some hard riding, and then some long waiting. We need to get around in front of them and—”

“I see.” She cut him off with a decisive nod.

But she didn’t see. For one thing, he hadn’t paid the slightest attention to her while she had struggled with long hours in the saddle, thirst, even hunger. Forcing her horse up this mountain as fast as she could ride had not caused him to slow down or even look back at her.

She studied his impassive expression. Unless she was very much mistaken, he was hiding something. Well, she was hiding something, too. Major Brand Wyler was short-spoken to the point of rudeness. He had rough manners—no, he had bad manners. But in spite of everything she was beginning to like him.

She liked the way his lips quirked when he was trying not to laugh at her. She liked the calm, steady way he went about things, making coffee in the morning or saddling the horses or even plopping her in the cold creek as he had that first night.

And she trusted him.

“What do you propose?” she repeated. “Tell me.”

He looked off across the sunbaked valley stretching before them, his gray eyes narrowed. “I propose we make a wide detour—” he tipped his head to the right “—then cut back to the trail ahead of them and lie in wait.”

“Them?”

“You said you heard three shots. More’n likely there’s more than one of them.”

“What do you think they want?”

“You. The money you’re carrying in that cloth belt around your waist. And the rest, the gold that Colonel Clarke insisted I carry in the bottom of my saddlebag.”

Her breath caught. “How do you know where I keep my money?”

“Felt it last night when I—”

“When you what?” she demanded.

“When I laid my arm over your middle. You were moaning some in your sleep. Thought you were scared.”

Suzannah stared at him. Was that a touch of color under his tan? It was. It surely was. The man was blushing!

Her insides went all squishy. The last thing she would have expected from this taciturn, hard-bitten man was concern for her feelings. She had discovered something about Brand Wyler, something she felt certain he worked hard to keep hidden. The man had a softer side. Wonder of wonders, Major Wyler wasn’t all hurry-it-up and don’t-ask-questions—the man was actually capable of human feelings.

“And,” she said hesitantly, “you were going to protect me, is that it?”

“Still am.”

Tears stung under her eyelids. No one had ever said that to her, promised they would protect her, even during the worst of the war years. Not even her fiancé.

“Very well, Brand. Do whatever you think best. I will try hard to keep up.”

They rode down into the dry, cold valley and swung a wide arc to the north, pushing the horses hard. Suzannah was as good as her word. She managed to keep up with him, how he didn’t know, since she was such an inexperienced horsewoman. But with each passing mile his respect for her grew. Sure was a fast learner. Either that or she’d be half-dead by the time he called a halt.

Brand knew exactly where he wanted to be when they cut back to the trail, a rock-strewn flat-topped hill he’d often used for reconnaissance. From the top he could see for miles in any direction, screened from view by a dribble of granite boulders. Clarke’s Castle, he called it. And it was still a good twenty miles ahead of them.

They stopped only once to refill the canteens. By the time both winded horses clattered up the mountainside, the wind was chilling the back of his neck and his mouth was so dry he couldn’t work up enough moisture to spit.

He rode on, pushing the black straight up the incline. Behind him he could hear Suzannah’s harsh breathing. It sounded more like sobbing, but she was hanging on. Warmth bloomed under his breastbone. She was one helluva woman.

Her horse stumbled, and he shot a glance behind him. Her braid had come loose and strands of wheat-colored hair straggled around her face. Under the hat brim her face looked dead white with exhaustion. But damn, she kneed that mare as if she’d been riding up mountains all her life. For a gently bred Southern belle, she sure was surprising.

At the top of his castle lookout, he dismounted and waited for her. When she came into view she was bent over the saddle horn, gasping for air, and his throat closed up tight. He grabbed his canteen, unscrewed the cap and sloshed some water into his palm. Then he kicked her boot out of the stirrup and stood up on the metal bar to reach her.

“Look up,” he commanded.

She lifted her head and he slathered his wet hand over her face and around the back of her neck. He thought about the front of her neck, where her shirt gapped open, but decided against it.

“Better?”

She nodded. He held his canteen to her lips and suppressed a smile. No Southern lady ever gulped water like she was doing now. Finally she handed the container back to him and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. The gesture was so unladylike it made him want to cheer.

He stepped down from the stirrup and reached up for her. With a hoarse sigh she tipped sideways into his arms, and he carried her to the cluster of sheltering boulders on the rim and settled her on the ground with her back against a flat rock. He unsaddled the horses, dropped the saddles and both saddlebags next to her, grabbed a double handful of dry grass, and wiped the animals down. Then he hand-fed them some oats.

Before he could join her, she surprised him.

“Can you see them anywhere?” She was still winded, but she managed to huff out the question.

He grabbed the canteen and moved to the lip of the plateau. Not a sign of a horse or a rider, not even a telltale puff of dust. Thank the Lord for that; at the moment he could use some food. And some rest.

“No sign of anyone,” he said. But as he ate the jerky he sliced off, he kept one eye on the valley below them.

Suzannah gobbled down the rounds of jerky as fast as he could pare them off. Last night he’d thought she didn’t much like it, but she was sure wolfing it down now. Again he had to smile. Was it possible that if you scratched the surface of an over-refined Southern belle you might find a human being?

He glanced over at her. Not just any human being, he amended, but Suzannah Cumberland.

Chapter Eight

Brand watched the sun sink behind the far-off hills, looking like a fat orange balloon too weary to stay aloft. He closed his eyelids for a few moments and opened them to a sky tinged with purple, and then gold and orange.

“Be dark soon,” he said. Suzannah nodded tiredly and slid farther down on her bedroll. Pretty soon he’d have to tell her what he’d decided. But not yet. Let her enjoy the sunset.

But she surprised him again. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” She sounded resigned but not frightened, and that made him wonder. Maybe she was just too exhausted to care.

“Yeah. I’m seeing smoke below us. Campfire, most likely. Gonna ride down and investigate.”

“Now? At night?”

“Yes, now. I’d be seen in daylight.”

“How long will you be gone?”

She didn’t ask how long she would be all alone up here, and that raised his eyebrows some more. She could sure surprise him.

“Depends on what I find, whether it’s someone following us or someone else. Suzannah, you ever fire a pistol?”

She popped up on one elbow. “No. Papa would never let me near any of his firearms.”

“Not even during the war, when the Northern army came through?”

“Yankees, you mean,” she said, her voice hardening. “No, not even then. Mama and Hattie kept a loaded rifle in the closet under the staircase, so we felt safe enough. And John...”

“That’s your intended?”

“Yes. John offered to lend me a revolver when he left, but by then the war was all over.”

“Did he teach you how to fire it?”

“No, he didn’t. He was there only two days, and then...then he was gone.”

Brand bit back a snort. “Two days! You agreed to marry a man after knowing him only two days?”

“Well, yes, I did. I grant you it was a very brief courtship, but...you see, there weren’t a great number of eligible men left after the war, and...and Mama never let me forget I was approaching spinsterhood. I guess I let myself get swept off my feet.”

“How old is spinsterhood, Suzannah?”

She hesitated. “I will be twenty-four in June.”

Annoyance tightened his jaw muscles. Two days! Forty-eight hours and he’d managed to leave with her heart in his pocket? This John must be some fast-talking stud. How had the man swept a woman like Suzannah off her feet in just two days?

He decided he didn’t like John Whatever His Name Was one bit. And he was annoyed as hell at her for being swept.

Forget it, Wyler. Her heart and her spinsterhood are none of your concern.

He scrabbled in his saddlebag for his extra revolver. “Suzannah, I’m gonna show you how to shoot this.” He laid it on her blanket. “Be careful. It’s loaded.”

She stared at it, then gazed up at him. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to leave you alone up here without some way to protect yourself.”

“Why not take me with you?”

“No. Too dangerous. I don’t know who’s down there.” He scooted over close to her. “Sit up.”

She shook off her blanket and sat cross-legged beside him. He lifted the Colt and positioned her hands around the butt.

“Hold it up steady, but don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to fire. That’s it. Now, sight down the barrel.”

The weapon wobbled in her grip. “It’s heavy,” she said.

Brand blew out a breath. “That’s all, ‘it’s heavy’? Not ‘I don’t want to do this’ or ‘Don’t go and leave me’ or anything a million other women would say in this situation?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“I don’t guess I am a million other women, Brand.”

“Yeah.” He forced his attention back to the weapon in her hands. “Yes, it’s heavy. That’s why you need both hands. Don’t try to do some fancy quick-draw maneuver—you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.”

“Brand?” She looked into his face, her green eyes widening.

“What?” Now she was gonna cry or beg him not to go.

“When I fire it, will it kick back?”

Whoa. Why the South had lost the war with women like this at home was beyond him. His regard for Suzannah Cumberland flared once again into grudging admiration.

“Yeah, it’ll jerk some. Don’t let it scare you, just grip it tight.” He saw her knuckles whiten as she tightened her grasp on his Colt.

“Brand?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

He just plain didn’t know what to say to that. He was so damn proud of her he wanted to pat her shoulder or shake her hand or something. Hell, he wanted to kiss her.

He squashed that thought and got to his feet. “Suzannah, you gonna be all right up here?”

“I will be perfectly all right. Well—” she gave a little laugh “—maybe not ‘perfectly,’ but all right enough.” She laid the Colt down and gingerly shoved it under her saddlebag.

Brand picked up his saddle and moved to the large boulder where he’d picketed the horses. With his back to her he checked his revolver, grabbed the gelding’s reins and hauled himself up into the saddle.

Suzannah crawled out of her bedroll and stood watching him, a half resigned, half pensive look on her face. Looking down at her, something began to crack inside his chest. He picked up the reins, then tossed them down and dismounted.

He reached her in two long strides, grasped her shoulders and kissed her. Hard. God forgive him, he wanted to do it again, and for a lot longer, but he forced himself to release her and remounted without looking at her.

He reined the horse away, and when he glanced back she was standing motionless right where he’d left her, the fingers of one hand covering her lips.

The knot in his chest cracked all the way open.

* * *

He kissed me! And it was wonderful, heart-thumpingly, stupendously wonderful! No man had ever kissed her like that, not even John.

She watched his horse disappear down the steep hillside and still she did not move. She was trembling all over, and then she was crying, and then... Oh, she simply couldn’t think straight.

But why did he do that? Why?

Slowly she walked back to her bedroll, absentmindedly patted the saddlebag where she’d hidden Brand’s revolver and stretched out on top of the blanket. In another hour the stars would come out.

She would lie here quietly and wait. And try not to think about what had just happened.

* * *

He saw the campfire glow from a long way off and slowed his horse to a walk. When he got close enough, he dismounted, tied the black to a cottonwood tree and started off on foot.

It didn’t take long. There were three men. He could take two easy, but three, he didn’t know for sure. He drew his revolver, held it down close to his thigh and moved into the circle of firelight.

Chapter Nine

“Gentlemen.”

“What the—?” The heavyset man facing Brand across the fire leaped to his feet. “Who the hell are you?”

“Name’s Brandon Wyler. And you?”

One of the other men twisted on the log he sat on and surveyed Brand with hard black eyes. His matted hair hung past the open neck of a grimy shirt, and Brand couldn’t help noticing his necklace of elk’s teeth. The third man, younger than his companions, looked downright skinny and his blond hair hung in greasy-looking strands past his fuzzy chin.

Silence.

He kept his revolver trained on the heavy one. “Talk to me,” Brand snapped. “What are you doin’ out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“H-hunting,” the blond kid answered. He didn’t sound too sure. “That—that’s right, isn’t it, Jim?”

“Shut up, Granger.”

“Hunting what?” Brand pursued.

The heavyset man propped his pudgy hands on his hips. “What’s it to you, mister?”

“Nothin’ much. I’m hunting, too. Didn’t want my horse to scare your quarry away.” He paused long enough to take a look at the silent third man. Round-shouldered, dark-skinned, with a drooping black mustache.

“I’m chasin’ after a woman,” Brand continued. “Following her, actually. Pretty. Blond hair. Came out from Missouri with a wagon train, but I lost track of her after Fort Hall. Colonel there told me she picked up a guide and started south to Texas. That’s where I’m headed. You run across her?”

“Nope,” Fatso said quickly. “Uh, how come you’re tryin’ to find her?”

“Money. She’s carrying a lot of cash and she owes me for a horse I sold her.” He watched the three men look at each other, then at him.

“Texas, huh?” Fatso said.

“Yeah. Hired a guide, like I said. Lost track of them a couple days ago, but I figure I can pick up their trail. Used to live halfway between here and Texas, so I know the trails. Maybe you fellas could use some company?” Brand carefully made a show of putting his gun away.

Again the men exchanged glances, and Brand knew they’d taken the bait. Already the skinny kid was edging toward a saddled pinto at the edge of their camp.

But Fatso pinned Brand with small, hostile eyes that were too close together. “We don’t want company, mister. Why don’t you just ride on outta here?”

“Sure thing. Maybe I’ll see you fellas on the trail.”

“Don’t look too hard. Like I said, we don’t want company.”

Brand faked anger. “Hey, I don’t want you hornin’ in on my quarry. Don’t want to share the goods with anybody, know what I mean?”

“Sure do. Now, turn around, mister, and vamoose.”

Brand pivoted and headed for his horse. Behind him he heard Fatso’s voice. “Granger, Jim, saddle up! We’re ridin’ out.”

Good riddance, he thought. He could hardly wait to get back to Suzannah. But just as he stuffed his boot into the stirrup, he heard the sound of a gun cocking and then the roar of its discharge. A bullet slammed into him. White-hot pain tore through his right shoulder and he sucked in his breath.

“Got ’im,” someone shouted. “He won’t be botherin’ us anymore.”

He had to mount, but he couldn’t grab the saddle horn and haul himself up by brute strength. He had to get back to the top of Clarke’s Castle and Suzannah. He gritted his teeth and reached up again.

* * *

Someone is coming. Suzannah listened for a moment, then jolted upright and fished under her saddlebag for the revolver. Lifting it in both hands, she pointed the barrel toward the noise, careful not to touch her finger to the trigger.

What was it, an animal? A wolf? The hair on the back of her neck rose. Could it be a bear? Did bears live on hilltops?

The sound came closer. Her mare shifted nervously, and Suzannah held her breath. Could she aim accurately in the dark? Even if she did, could she kill anything?

A horse! She heard hoofbeats, moving slowly, just beyond the boulders. Very slow hoofbeats, and... Oh, God. She tried to control her shaking hands, slipped off the safety and slid her forefinger over the trigger.

And then she heard something odd, someone whistling through his teeth—“Oh, Susanna.”

“Brand?”

“Yeah,” came a tired voice.

She was on her feet and running as his head appeared over the rocks. “Brand!”

“Suzannah,” he rasped. “For God’s sake, put the gun down.”

She tossed it onto the ground and kept moving toward him.

“Gotta help me down, Suzannah. My shoulder’s hurt.” He dropped the reins, brought his leg over the saddle horn and reached down to her with one arm. With a groan he latched on to her extended hands and slid to the ground.

He staggered, and she grabbed him around the waist. “Easy, easy,” he panted. “Don’t bump my arm.”

“Which arm?”

“Right. It’s my shoulder, really. Gunshot.”

She cried out, then clapped her free hand over her mouth.

“Walk me over to my bedroll, will you?”

Step by halting step she guided him the twenty feet to his blankets, and he dropped to his knees. “Think you could unsaddle my horse?”

After some fumbling she figured out how to loosen the cinch under the animal’s belly and dragged off the saddle. She staggered under the weight.

“Make some coffee, will you?” he called.

“I thought you were afraid of smoke being seen.”

“Dig a fire pit. Use the shovel tied on my horse. Scoop down about ten inches.”

Brand watched his ladylike lady dig what had to be the first hole she’d made in the earth since making mud pies when she was a girl. She followed his instructions, and when the coffee was bubbling over on her scrabbled-together fire, he asked for the final thing he needed.

“Look in my saddlebag for my whiskey flask and some linen for bandages. And the jerky,” he added. “All of a sudden I’m damn hungry.”

Her relief was so obvious he had to laugh. “You cannot be at death’s door if you are hungry,” she quipped.

“Coffee ’bout ready?”

“After I tend to your shoulder.” She found the bandages and the whiskey and settled beside him. “Lean forward.”

She stripped off his bloody shirt while he clenched his jaw. She peered at him. “Do you want some whiskey?”

“No. Save it for...just save it.”

“There doesn’t seem to be very much blood,” she said.

“Bullet must have gone clean through.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Like a son of a— Yeah, it hurts.”

She twisted her hands together. “What should I do now?”

“Pour the whiskey over it.”

She uncorked the flask, clamped her teeth together and dribbled the contents over his bloody shoulder while he hissed in his breath and swore.

“Such language!” she remarked when his fist released her shirt-sleeve.

Brand closed his eyes while she rustled around the camp getting out mugs for the coffee. “Any whiskey left?”

“Yes. But save some for me, please.”

For her! Lord save them, the trail to Oregon was corrupting his Southern belle. He heard the coffee dribble out of the pot and, still keeping his eyes closed, he reached for a mug. It was hot and strong and so full of grounds he ended up chewing most of the first mouthful, but he didn’t say a word, just gulped down swallow after swallow while she unfolded his pocketknife and did her best to saw off rounds of jerky.

“Open your mouth,” she ordered. She laid a piece of the salty-tasting dried meat on his tongue. He chewed it up and swallowed it down. His shoulder throbbed like a son of a gun, but he tried not to think about it. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought about Suzannah while she fed him sips of coffee and more jerky as if she’d done it all her life.

“You know something, Suzannah?”

“I know a great many things, Brand. I was very well educated when I was a girl. Papa had acres of books. What would you like to know?”

“Nothing that’s in any book,” he growled. “I wanted to say that, fancy education or not, you are one extraordinary woman.”

“Oh, I do hope so. I do want to make John a good wife.”

He snapped his lids open. “Hand me the whiskey.”

But three slugs of the liquor didn’t take away the sour taste of John’s name on her lips. He listened to her pouring coffee for herself and slicing off more rounds of jerky and wondered why the whiskey wasn’t working.

“How do you know you really want to marry this man?” he heard himself say. “You’ve only known him for two days.”

“I just know. John was so dashing and so personable, and attentive and, well, flattering...with such fine manners. I just know.”

For some reason her words made him mad. “That’s what it takes to get a girl like you, huh? Fancy manners and flattery?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“I have—” He sucked in a breath. “I had a younger sister. She fell in love with some damn flashy army officer who was just toying with her. He left her at the altar, and—” he swallowed over the rock in his throat “—she, uh, she drowned herself.”

Her face changed. “Oh, Brand, what a terrible thing.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s why I believe in long engagements. Gives a couple of lovers time to get to know each other.”

She was silent for a long minute. “You think I am foolish, do you not?”

“I think... Doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Yes, it does. Tell me.”

He began playing with his pocketknife, turning it over and over in his hand and rubbing his thumb over the smooth handle.

“Seems to me like a man and a woman have two choices. They can fall into bed with each other and damn the consequences. Or they can do what men and women do to spend time together—takin’ walks by the river and dancin’ with each other and goin’ on picnics and all those things. Then they can—”

“Fall into bed with each other,” she supplied.

His laugh stuttered into the quiet.

“It is the same in the end, is it not?” Her voice told him he should drop the subject, but something inside him wouldn’t let it go.

“Might not be the same, no. Might be that if she looked hard enough at a man she’d see something in him that should warn her off.”

“And you wish your sister had done just that.”

Brand looked past her hunched shoulder into the soft darkness. “Yeah. If she had, she’d be alive today. If I ever meet up with the bastard who destroyed her, I’m going to kill him.”

She hesitated. “What good will that do?”

“It’d get him off the face of the earth, for one thing. And it might make me feel better about my sister.”

Suzannah said nothing. After a while she refilled his coffee and then her own and sat sipping it slowly. He watched her slim, delicate fingers cradle the tin mug. An army wife? He didn’t think so. Even an officer’s wife, like the colonel’s lady, Violet McLeod got pretty well ground down between sandstorms and Indian skirmishes and God knew what else out here in the West.

“There’s precious little to compensate a gently reared woman at an army post,” he said carefully.

“There is her husband,” Suzannah insisted. “There is always the love of her husband.”

What the hell, her mind was made up. She didn’t want to see the danger staring her in the face. And anyway, what difference did it make if she wanted to throw her life away out in Oregon? But it ate at him just the same.

Something he said must have whanged into her because she sat looking down at him for a long time, her eyes troubled. Slowly he reached up and touched her shoulder, spread his fingers against her warmth and drew her down to him.

His lips grazed her forehead, moved to her cheek and then hovered a scant inch from her mouth.

“Suzannah,” he murmured. “Don’t do it, Suzannah. Don’t marry him.”

Chapter Ten

If she lived to be a hundred, Suzannah would never understand her feelings at this moment. Brand slipped his hand behind her neck and tugged her down until his mouth met hers. His lips were warm and firm and gentle with restraint, but she could feel his wanting. She tasted salt and coffee and hunger, such a deep hunger that her breath stopped.

He made a sound in his throat and wound his fingers into her hair. Colors danced under her closed eyelids, like starbursts, and she felt his heartbeat grow ragged. What is happening?

“Brand...”

“Don’t talk,” he whispered against her lips. He kissed her again, and then again, each time inviting. Enticing. This is glorious. Unbelievable.

Surely she was dreaming! His hand cradled her head and his mouth...his mouth was so insistent, so delicious on hers. Was this how a man and a woman felt when...when...?

She pulled away but hung mere inches from his mouth, listening to their breathing. His heart beat against her palm and she wondered if he could feel hers fluttering against his chest.

“I’m not sorry I did that,” he said at last.

I am not sorry, either, she sang inside. Not sorry at all.

With a wry smile he let his hand fall to his side. “Must be dreamin’,” he breathed.

Dreaming, yes, that was it. She had to be dreaming.

“No more whiskey for either one of us,” she managed. Then she realized she had not had a single, solitary drop of liquor. Nevertheless, she still felt intoxicated.

And now she understood what the Indians meant by “strong medicine.”

* * *

Brand woke near dawn to find Suzannah snuggled close to him, her head tucked between his chin and his good shoulder, her small hands folded under her chin. His heartbeat thundered against his ribs and he fought to keep his arm by his side and not wrap it around her sleeping form.

He sure wasn’t thinking clearly when it came to this woman. She made him feel more off balance than he could ever remember, and sure as God made green grass and peach trees, he didn’t need this complicating his life.

But he drifted off to sleep smelling her hair and remembering the feel of her mouth under his.

In the morning he eased his aching body away from her and packed up everything one-handed, trying to keep his eyes off her sleeping form. He managed to make coffee before she woke up, and when she finally did open her eyes he busied himself with saddling both horses.

She didn’t say a word while she downed her mug of coffee. Wouldn’t look at him, either. Guess he’d overstepped last night. Sure would like to overstep again, but they had about six days of riding ahead of them, and at the end he’d have to hand her over to another man. Smart thing would be to keep his hands off her.

She braided up her hair like she always did, settled her hat on her head and pulled it so low he couldn’t see much of her face. Then she walked to her mare, stuck her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up into the saddle. She sat waiting while he slung both saddlebags on their mounts and kicked dirt over the fire.

He moved out in the lead and tried not to think about another week on the trail with her. Looked like it’d be a long, long day today. Quiet, too.

That lasted until the sun told him it was around ten o’clock and, even though they’d ridden side by side for the past three hours, she still hadn’t said a word. It was hell trying to figure out a woman, especially this woman. She was delicate and tough, and both smart and dumb; her head was stuck so deep in the sand over this John of hers she’d be ninety before she wised up.

Each time they stopped to rest and water the horses, Brand kept a sharp eye out for a telltale puff of dust behind them. None showed, and he’d seen no sign of another living soul. His shoulder ached, and the longer he rode the stiffer it got. He tried to work his arm back and forth every hour or so and prayed it would heal clean. Last thing she’d need was a guide with a fever and a bum arm.

By late afternoon Suzannah still hadn’t spoken a single word, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled air into his lungs and twisted to look at her.

“Sure wish you’d say something.”

“Very well.” Her voice reminded him of his mother’s primroses, all neat and proper with nary a petal out of place. “Do you think we are still being followed?” she asked.

“Nope. I gulled them into turning south, heading for Texas. Forgot to tell you last night.”

“How did you accomplish that?”

“Told ’em a bunch of lies.”

“How many were there?”

“Lies? Or men?”

She sniffed. “Men, of course.”

“Three.”

They rode across a valley and up into some green foothills, following a good-size stream. Dusk started to fall.

Brand unsheathed his rifle. “I’m going hunting. Try to get a rabbit or a grouse. Keep riding and stay on the trail.”

She said nothing, and he loped away into the trees. An hour later he caught up to her, a fat rabbit hanging off his saddle horn.

“I did not hear a gunshot,” she remarked.

“Used a snare. A shot might be heard.”

He picked a campsite sheltered by larch trees where the creek they’d been following widened. Suzannah dismounted, stretched her aching back muscles and studied the stream. She was hot and tired and sticky with perspiration.

“I’m going to take a bath.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Why not? I cannot stop thinking about how good that cool water would feel, and I could wash my hair and rinse out my shirt and—”

“No.”

“Brand, be reasonable. No one is following us—you said so yourself.”

He tramped up and down beside the stream and finally turned to face her. “I want you where I can see you.”

“That,” she replied, “would be highly improper.”

“Maybe so, but it’s also highly safe. Take it or leave it.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Setting up camp. Tending the horses. Dressing out that rabbit for supper. I don’t want you too far out of sight.”

She considered his words, then fixed her gaze on him and considered the man who spoke them. He wasn’t exactly honorable; after all, he’d kissed her twice without asking permission. But he was honest, and she trusted him.

“Very well,” she agreed at last. She dug a bar of soap wrapped in tinfoil out of her saddlebag and unfolded a clean shirt. Green this time. She was sick of the red plaid and it was beginning to get dirty again. And anyway, if she washed it out and put it back on wet, he would look at her in that same hot way he’d done before. She surmised, somewhat shocked, that a wet shirt plastered to her skin must reveal her nipples.

She found a spot where the creek bank gradually shelved off into the water and was screened by a leafy bush. She turned to see where Brand was.

She could just see the top of his head as he moved around camp, and he was not looking at her. She unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged it off, then realized she had no towel. Well, she would simply have to air-dry.

Submerging her body in the rippling water felt heavenly, even if it was ice-cold! She lolled and rubbed the soap over her skin and lolled some more before she rinsed off the bubbles. Then she unwound her braid and washed her hair. She soused the red plaid shirt up and down in the creek, tossed it over a bush, and waved her arms in the air to dry her skin.

A delicious, stomach-rumbling smell drifted from the camp. Meat! Thank heavens, supper would be not jerky but rabbit. She moved her arms faster.

* * *

Working slowly with only one hand, Brand spitted the cut-up rabbit pieces, arranged them over the coals and stood up. A flash of something pale caught his attention and he narrowed his eyes. Jehoshaphat, it was Suzannah. Naked. Her arms outstretched, her face tipped up toward the disappearing sun. Her back was to him.

His mouth went dry. She was so beautiful it made his throat ache. She was one hundred percent female perfection from the flare of her hips to her knobby spine to her slim shoulders. All perfection. Her hair was loose and maybe damp the way it clung to her neck and upper back in little straggly curls.

Turn away, Wyler. Turn around.

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t turn around.

When he opened them she was buttoning up a green shirt and shaking the wet hair out of her eyes. He groaned out loud. Five days to go. Five days of trying not to look at her, smell her. Touch her. Four days of riding side by side during the day and sleeping next to her all night.

And he was plumb out of whiskey.

When she returned to camp he made a decision. “Watch the rabbit, will you? I’m goin’ for a swim.”

“It’s too shallow to swim,” she said at his back.

He didn’t answer, just walked straight into the cold water and lay down in the creek. Even the icy water didn’t cool him off.

He stood up, took off his clothes and lay back down.

“Do you want my bar of soap?” she called.

“No.”

“It’s scented with lavender.”

“Keep it. And stay away from the creek.”

When he finally dragged himself back to camp, his boots were squishy and the wet garments he’d wrestled back on dripped water wherever he stood. With a silent curse he dug out a clean shirt and headed back to the creek, washed out his dirty shirt and socks and his drawers, and tossed them over the bush next to Suzannah’s red shirt. By the time he returned to camp his nerves were steadier.

Suzannah gave the spitted rabbit another quarter turn and set the coffeepot close to the fire. She’d watched Brand make coffee, and now she knew how to finish off the brew by dumping in a cup of cold water before pouring it. For some reason knowing how to do this buoyed her spirits. Every army wife must know such things, she supposed. Now she was one step closer to being just that, an army wife.

Brand tramped back into camp, his dark hair looking damp and unruly and his jeans soaking wet.

“Did you bathe?”

“Not exactly,” he said dryly.

She gazed up at him. “Well, what, exactly?”

That made him laugh. The sound sent a shiver up the back of her neck. She liked this man. Even if he lacked the manners to ask permission before kissing her, she liked him.

John had asked permission, but, well, it wasn’t the same. Oh, bother! Properly raised women were not supposed to enjoy such intimacies.

But you enjoyed it with Brand, Suzannah. Admit it. You enjoyed it so much it frightened you. You even wanted more.

Hush up! She could not allow herself to think such wayward thoughts. Instead she busied herself rummaging in his saddlebag for the tin plates and the spoon they shared for supper.

Brand squatted next to her at the fire pit and poked a finger at the rabbit. “It’s done. You hungry?”

He needn’t have asked. She wolfed down two nicely browned pieces and when she looked longingly at a third, he chuckled. “For someone as slim as, um, slim as you are, you sure have a good appetite.”

“Riding all day makes me hungry, I guess.”

“Got berries for dessert,” he remarked.

Her eyebrows went up. “Berries?”

“Wild blackberries. Picked ’em while you were...picked ’em earlier.” He’d picked them to occupy his mind and keep his hands busy while she was splashing in the creek. Females didn’t realize what the sound of a woman taking a bath did to a man.

Chapter Eleven

Brand popped a handful of fat, juicy berries into his mouth and grinned at Suzannah. “You ever pick blackberries when you were a kid?”

“No, I never have. We, um, had servants who gathered our food for us.”

“You ever wonder whether you might have missed a lot, growing up so protected?”

“No, I never wondered that before,” she said, her tone thoughtful. “Now I am wondering why I didn’t.”

“Ever sneak cookies? Climb trees? Run away from home?”

Suzannah wished he wouldn’t look at her that way, his gray eyes wide and unbelieving. “No, I never did any of those things. Did you?”

He crammed another palm full of blackberries into his mouth. She ate hers carefully, one by one, and licked her fingers. In a way she envied his gusto.

“Yeah, I did all that, and more. Guess you might say I didn’t have your fancy upbringing.”

“Where did you grow up, Brand?”

“Before I lit out from home or after?”

She blinked. “Before. Where were you born?”

“Philadelphia. Wrong side of town, though. When I left I ended up in Ohio, and then I joined the Union Army.”

“Did you...did you ever fight in South Carolina?”

“Nope. But I fought everywhere else—Vicksburg, Bull Run, Chancellorsville. War is a bloody, awful business. Glad it’s over.”

She studied his face but saw no bitterness, only resignation. “Yes, the war was truly terrible. After it was over it was worse for the South, so many of our boys killed or wounded. Over half the men of Roseboro never came home.”

“And one night your father just up and invited a Yankee officer to a ball at your plantation?”

“Well, yes, he did. Papa said the fighting was over and now we should all try to get along with each other. It wasn’t a ball like we had before the war, though, with an orchestra and everything. After the war we tried to keep our spirits up, and we could still dance a Virginia reel.”

“Bet he regretted it when you left home to follow your Yankee officer out west.”

“Papa never knew. He died in a riding accident only a month after meeting John. Mama pitched a fit, though. It was hard to leave her so soon after Papa’s death, but John was so insistent, I...did what he said.”

Brand chased the last blackberry around and around on his plate. “I came out west to fight Indians.”

“You must have been successful since you were promoted to major.”

“Not so much. Like I said, war is pretty awful. After it was over, I scouted for Colonel Clarke for a while.”

“And then?”

“Then I got to like some of the Indians better than my own men, so I mustered out. Doesn’t pay to see your enemies as human beings sometimes.”

“On the contrary, I think it always pays to do so.”

He laughed softly. “You mean ‘love your neighbor’ kind of thing?”

“Yes, exactly. I am quite sure my John feels the same.”

“But you don’t know,” he said, his voice hard. “Bet you never got around to discussing it.”

“Well, no, we never did,” she said in a small voice.

“And now you’re goin’ all the way out to Oregon to marry this man you never discussed anything with.” It wasn’t a question. It came out sounding like an accusation.

“Yes, I am. I am going to Oregon to marry him, and don’t you dare say one more thing about it!”

He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “Suzannah, I have to tell you I think you’re makin’ a big mistake.”

She clenched her teeth. “You listen to me, Brand Wyler. There is more to a relationship than...well, than kisses.”

“Yeah.” He looked straight at her, his face set. “But that’s a good start. If they’re good kisses, that’s an important indication of something.”

“That is shallow and superficial. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it is good.” Lordy, how straitlaced and prim she sounded.

He did not look away. “What’s wrong with feeling good?”

Suzannah swallowed. She wished he would look somewhere else. She knew her cheeks were flushing; her whole face felt hot. “Nothing is wrong with it, I guess. But that is not how I was raised. I was brought up to expect that a man would have high regard for my person and my breeding and my good name. One false step and a girl could be ruined.”

“You mean,” he said dryly, keeping his eyes on her face, “that your reputation as a respectable virgin would be compromised.”

“Yes, exactly. That is what happened to your sister, was it not?”

“Not exactly. This scoundrel, Jack something, took advantage of Marcy. He promised to marry her, then he never showed up for the wedding. She wrote me about it, said she was devastated.”

“Poor girl,” Suzannah murmured. “Poor, foolish girl.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Brand, why are we talking about all this? I know my fiancé is an honorable man. Furthermore, I know exactly what I am doing.”

“Like hell you do.” He stood up suddenly and paced around the camp with his hands jammed in his back pockets. Finally he stopped in front of her.

“Suzannah, I think you have to know a man, really know him, before you decide to spend your life with him. I think you have to like that man, and I think you have to like that man’s kisses...and I think you have to feel like you want more than that.”

She jumped to her feet and confronted him, hands on her hips. “Well! I do not care one whit what you think, Brandon Wyler. So let that be an end to it.”

Brand stood eye to eye with her. She was good and mad now, but he didn’t care. He wished someone had talked some sense into Marcy; to his dying day he’d regret that he hadn’t been there to do that. Maybe she wouldn’t have paid any attention, kinda like Suzannah was doing now, digging in her heels and refusing to listen. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let it alone.

And maybe it’s more than that.

He pivoted on one heel and gazed out across the hills, now glowing purple as the sun sank in the west. He couldn’t figure out how this overprotected slip of a woman from a South he never wanted to see again could raise his hackles so fast. She was stubborn and argumentative and so damn convinced she was right it set his teeth on edge.

Ah, hell, why should he care?

He didn’t, really. Or at least he told himself he didn’t. But he sure couldn’t ignore what had happened to him when he’d kissed her. Something inside his chest swelled up until it hurt, and the next thing he knew he felt as though he was flying.

“Time to turn in,” he barked. Without glancing at her, he unrolled his blanket, positioned his saddle at his head and shucked his boots. She marched around camp for a good quarter of an hour, then spread her bedroll about as far away from him as she could get.

Better that way, he acknowledged. He didn’t want to see her curled up in a ball with just the top of her blond head peeking out, or hear those little sighs she made in her sleep, or smell the violet scent of her hair.

Long after the fire burned down to a handful of faint orange coals, he lay awake calculating not how many days it would take them to reach Fort Klamath, but how many hours.

And every one, one too many.

Chapter Twelve

Shortly after dawn Suzannah felt something hard poke her derriere. She ignored it, and a moment later it poked again.

“Wake up,” Brand ordered.

She groaned and snuggled deeper under her blanket.

Something metallic clanked beside her and she inhaled the pungent smell of frying meat. Opening one eyelid, she saw a tin plate loaded with slices of steaming-hot jerky and two fat, fluffy biscuits. Beside it sat a brimming mug of hot coffee.

She propped up on one elbow and leaned over to sniff the meat.

“It’s fried,” Brand explained from the other side of the fire. “Maybe not as good as bacon, but we don’t have any bacon.”

She reached for a slice, gobbled it along with one of the biscuits and washed it all down with a swallow of coffee. Despite all his maddening male know-it-all faults, she had to admit Brand made excellent coffee, now that she’d come to like it.

“Get up,” he ordered. “Got to get goin’ before the sun’s up.”

Had she ever known a more annoying man? He was all nag-nag-nag and push-push-push, and she was heartily sick of it.

“Let me alone,” she protested.

“Can’t. You want to get to Fort Klamath, and I want to—”

He broke off, but she knew what he’d been about to say. He wanted to be rid of her. The feeling was most certainly mutual.

“Suzannah...”

“Oh, very well,” she said. “Do stop badgering me, Brand. You’re worse than Mama at her most officious moments.”

His dark eyebrows went up. “Your momma bossed you around?”

“Well, she tried to. I don’t guess I ‘bossed’ very well.”

His laugh surprised her. Brand might be an overbearing bully, but at least he had a nice laugh—rich and rumbly.

She dragged herself upright, stuffed her feet into her boots and noticed that her blisters no longer hurt. Then she slipped three more slices of fried jerky past her lips and devoured another biscuit. Besides coffee, Brand made very fine biscuits.

She supposed that, being an army wife, she must learn to cook, but somehow the prospect was daunting. She hadn’t thought to pack one of Hattie’s receipt books, but frying slices of jerky couldn’t be too difficult, could it?

Brand appeared to be in a real fizz to be on their way. He packed up both bedrolls, fed the horses and hovered at her elbow while she finished the last of her biscuits. Before she swallowed the remains of her coffee, he tramped off to the creek to wash the tin plates, then packed them into his saddlebag.

She had to scramble to fit in her necessary morning stop and splash cold water on her face before Brand herded her over to the mare.

“Want a boost up?” he asked.

“No, I do not. Why are you in such an all-fired hurry this morning?”

“No reason.” He wouldn’t look at her, so she knew he was lying. Something was wrong. Her heart skipped some beats.

She pulled herself up into her saddle and shot him a look. “We are not being followed, are we?”

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