“Tomorrow morning.”
“Can you travel?”
“Hey, no problem. Bullets bounce right off me, you know? Ribs of steel.” He straightened, but Abby could see it was an effort for him to keep from grimacing. She’d seen the bullet wound. Even if it wasn’t life-threatening, she knew how much pain it was causing. And she knew it wasn’t going to be easy for him to travel rough terrain on horseback in hip-deep snow.
“You’ll need antibiotics,” she said. “Maybe a tetanus shot.”
“It’ll keep.” He looked up at the sky. “We might get lucky and see the chopper. I’ve got a couple of flares.”
“In the saddlebag?”
He walked over to the saddlebag and removed a cylindrical flare. “Just hold the flare dead center, like this.” He demonstrated. “And strike the tip against a tree or a rock. One end will flame and start smoking like crazy.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Let’s make some time.”
* * *
Jake smelled it before he actually saw the rising steam or heard the gurgle of water.
“What on earth is that smell?” Abby asked.
He stopped his horse and peered into the gathering darkness. “Sulfur,” he said.
She parked the mule next to Brandywine and stared into the trees. “Sulfur?”
He glanced over at her and his heart bumped hard a couple of times against his ribs the way it always did when she was close. They’d been traveling over rough terrain and deep snow for nearly four hours. But even exhausted and scared and cold, she was incredibly beautiful. At some point her hair had come loose and coiled like springs around her shoulders. Fatigue shadowed the fragile skin beneath her eyes. But her eyes still had that vital light that was the force of her personality. He’d found himself watching her a dozen times throughout the afternoon hours. Found himself wondering if anyone had ever loved her. If a man had loved her. If Abby had loved him back….
Banking the thought with ruthless precision, Jake clucked to the horse and moved into a small clearing surrounded by jutting rock and piñon pine. Near an outcropping of jagged granite, fog rose out of the earth like ghostly fingers.
“I feel like I’m entering the enchanted forest,” Abby said from behind him. “What is this place?”
He grinned. He almost couldn’t believe it. “A hot spring,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She gaped at the bubbling water and thick bank of swirling fog that hovered above. “It looks…surreal.”
“There are quite a few hot springs in the area. There’s one not far from Aspen. It draws a lot of tourists year-round and from all over the world.”
“Can we…get in?”
“As long as the water temperature isn’t too hot.”
She stared at the rising steam. “I don’t know about this….”
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been so glad to see hot water in my life.” Turning in the saddle, Jake glanced over at her and grinned. “You’ll love it.”
Careful not to jar the wound in his side, he used the stirrup and dismounted. He lashed Brandywine to a sturdy lodge-pole pine, loosened the girth of the saddle, then proceeded toward the bubbling pool. “A couple of young park rangers were seriously burned up in Yellowstone a few years back when they jumped into a hot spring.”
“How awful.”
“We’ll be a little bit more cautious.” He could feel the heat even from three feet away. After two days and two nights of hard riding and sponge baths, he was more than ready for a dip.
“How are you going to check the water temperature?” she asked from behind him. “We’re both pretty cold. You know what long periods of exposure to cold does to a person’s sense of temperature.”
Remembering the first-aid kit, he walked back over to Brandywine, opened the saddlebag and removed a thermometer from the kit. “I knew I’d need this someday.”
“Well, that’s pretty handy.”
He looked up to see Abby sliding off of Rebel Yell. He watched her slide the lead over the animal’s head then tie him next to Brandywine. He couldn’t help but wonder how she would look with all that wild hair tangling over her bare shoulders, her body immersed in hot mineral water….
He turned away and strode to the water’s edge. The warm steam felt heavenly on his cold, chapped face. Squatting, he submerged the thermometer. “I’ll keep it in there for a minute or so and see what the water temp is. If it’s under a hundred degrees we should be good to go.”
She came up beside him. Her leg was right next to his face. He remembered from the day he’d undressed her that she had long, slender legs with just the right amount of muscle definition. Her skin had been creamy white and soft as velvet. He wanted to lift his hand and touch her, but he didn’t dare.
He pulled the thermometer from the water, felt a grin emerge. “Ninety-two degrees.”
“That means we can…bathe?”
Rising to his full height, he looked down at her. “We can do a lot more than that.”
The words hung between them like a faux pas at some fancy dinner party. She opened her mouth, her eyes widening slightly. Realizing that hadn’t sounded at all how he’d intended, Jake cleared his throat. “What I meant to say was, aside from cleaning up and warming up, I can use the warmth to melt some snow for the horses. And refill our water bag.”
“Oh. I mean, sure. I mean…I know what you meant.”
“Right.”
“Yeah.” She nodded vigorously, but she didn’t meet his gaze. “Um…is there anything I can do to help?”
“Why don’t you fill the pail with snow, tie the rope off on the branch up there above, and set it in the water? I’ll feed the horses the last of the grain.”
“Oh, Jake, they’re going to be hungry in the morning.”
The realization that she was worried about the animals going hungry warmed him. No, Abby Nichols didn’t fit the profile of a convict. Certainly not a murderer. The only question that remained was what he was going to do about it.
You’re going to take her back anyway, aren’t you, sport?
The question had been eating at him all day, like a voracious acid that continued to devour long after it had been washed away. Jake had tried to justify what he had to do; he was only carrying out the job he’d been hired to do, for God’s sake. He knew it was guilt playing on his conscience. Guilt with a little bit of lust mixed in. The thought shamed him, but he refused to believe his feelings for her went any deeper. That would be just too hard to deal with.
As much as he hated the thought of taking her back, he knew there was no other way to handle this. It was crazy to think anything could be resolved by hiding out in the mountains in the middle of winter.
“You know, Abby, we’re going to be pretty hungry, too, come morning.” He looked at her and grimaced.
She pulled the pail from the saddlebag, then turned those eyes on him. Jake could tell by her expression that she already knew what he was going to say next.
“We’ve got to keep riding,” he said after a moment.
“In the dark?” Desperation flickered in her eyes.
Jake knew she’d been hoping for another night of freedom—instead of a few short hours. It was killing him to do this. But he didn’t have a choice. Damn it, he didn’t.
“The ranger station is only a few hours from here. We’ll stop for a while to clean up and rest, but we can’t stop for the night. I don’t want to risk running into bad weather or having to deal with the sniper again.”
She looked down at the pail, but not before he caught the flash of pain in her eyes. She’d looked gut-punched. God, he hated hurting her. Hated it more than anything in the world. Why in the hell did this have to be so difficult? Why did he have to care about this woman?
The realization of just how much he cared for her sent a swirl of panic through him. He reassured himself it was just his libido talking. He was a man, after all; she was an attractive woman. They
’d been keeping close quarters for two days now. He couldn’t help it if there was some kind of sexual chemical reaction between them every time they got within shouting distance of each other. He was going to keep this impersonal. He was going to take her back. He was going to do the right thing if it killed him.
“Okay,” she said at last. “We go back.”
“We don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything, but just looked at him with those incredible eyes. Only now they were filled with a profound sadness than made him feel like a bastard.
God, he hated this.
He took the pail from her. “I’ll take care of the horses. Why don’t you grab your protein bar if you want it and go ahead and get in the water?”
“Oh, well…sure. I mean, I’m starved.” Pausing, she turned back to him and cocked her head. “Whatever happened to those peanut butter cookies?”
Jake felt a little sheepish. “I was running low on grain, so I…fed them to the animals.”
“The cookies?”
“Well…Brandywine loves peanut butter.”
She stared at him a moment, then a laugh broke from her throat. It was a melodious sound that rippled through the frigid air and echoed off the bare-branched trees like the sound of birdsong. Jake soaked in the sound of it, let it warm him from the inside out. When she smiled, he smiled back. It was a simple moment. An honest moment that shouldn’t have meant anything to either of them. But it was exactly the kind of moment he’d come to cherish in the last two days. Exactly the kind he was going to miss when this was over.
* * *
Abby was uneasy as she stepped out of her jumpsuit and draped it over the gnarled branch of a low-growing juniper a few feet away from the spring. Not only was the air freezing cold, but her modesty made undressing a personal discomfort as well. Taking her clothes off in subfreezing temperatures was bad enough—but it was even worse knowing Jake was only a few yards away taking care of the animals. The spring was hidden from his view—and it wasn’t as if she didn’t trust him. She did. Well, at least when it came to his being a gentleman. What she didn’t trust was the annoying little explosion of desire that went off inside her every time she looked at him. And the crazy notion that her feelings for him went deeper than the flesh.
She was totally insane to be attracted to a man like Jake. A man of honor, full of promises and an uncompromising sense of right and wrong. Jonathan Reed had taught her a hard lesson about those things, and Abby had sworn she would never subject herself to that ever again. But even the pain of his betrayal wasn’t enough of a deterrent to keep her from considering jumping into the fire all over again with Jake.
He was as hardened and cold as the Rocky Mountains themselves. He didn’t care about easy when it came to right and wrong. He followed the rules even when those rules were wrong, even if those rules were going to destroy her. And he was damn well going to take her back to prison no matter what the cost to either of them.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the thought. In the past twenty-four hours, things had gotten complicated. If she was going to escape and clear her name she had to forget about Jake and his promise to help her. She’d made the mistake of trusting him, of believing he could help her. Just like she had with Reed—and look where that had gotten her.
No, she couldn’t give up her original plan. She couldn’t let Jake talk her out of what she needed to do. She’d already given the legal system ample opportunity to get to the truth. Lady Justice had let her down.
Abby’s life was on the line. The burden of proving her innocence now lay squarely on her own shoulders. She didn’t intend to blow it. She would take a few minutes to warm herself and get clean. Once they were back on the trail, she would take off. Jake was injured; he wouldn’t be able to ride hard enough to catch her. With a little luck, she would be sitting in the cab of a Peterbilt, heading west toward Grams’s place in New Mexico by dawn.
The air was bitterly cold against her bare skin. Shivering, her body covered with gooseflesh, she stepped over to the pool. The spring was six feet across and surrounded by rock. She dipped her toe into the bubbling mineral bath. The warmth beckoned her. Knowing she didn’t have time to waste without risking Jake catching her in her birthday suit, she stuck her entire foot into the water, and felt for the bottom with her toes to see how deep it was. Three feet down, the sandy bottom met her foot. Stepping into the pool, Abby sank into the water up to her chin. Her body sang with the zing of sudden and unexpected warmth. The heat shocked her with pleasure. Sighing, she leaned her head against the rock behind her and looked up at the sky.
Dusk had fallen gray and cold. The branches above the pool were shiny and black from the steam that had risen and frozen to the bark. She could hear Jake over by the horses. He was talking quietly to his mare. She smiled, thinking of the peanut butter cookies. The man definitely had a soft spot for his animals.
She wondered why that same soft spot didn’t apply to her.
“How’s the water?”
Abby looked over to see Jake standing a few feet away. He looked like some kind of apparition as she stared at him through the undulating fingers of steam. She watched, mesmerized as he slipped off his duster, draped it over the low branch of a tree, then toed off his boots.
She fully intended to answer him, but the realization that he wasn’t going to stop with the duster and intended to strip right down to his birthday suit and get into the small pool with her rendered her speechless.
Standing there in his worn jeans and flannel shirt, he looked rugged and as dangerous as a rogue cougar. Two days of black stubble darkened his lean jaw. His gunmetal eyes were level on her, and she realized he was always looking at her as if he were trying to work through a complex problem. She wondered if she looked at him the same way, if he had any idea just how complicated the emotions twisting through her had become.
His hands went to his belt buckle.
Abby averted her gaze. “You’re not coming in now, are you?”
“You don’t expect me to stand out here and freeze my toes off while you’re soaking in all that heat, do you?”
“No, it’s just that…it’s just that, I’m not…dressed.”
“Well, I hope not. It’s not like we have a clothes dryer up here.”
“Well, you’re not going to…” She could barely say the words. “Take your clothes off, are you?”
“I’m not getting in there with them on.”
“How can you just…strip like that?”
“Blondie, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me yet, but I’m not the modest type.”
Oh, yeah, she’d noticed all right. Risking a look at him out of the corner of her eye, she shivered despite the heat radiating into her body. Oh no, the man wasn’t shy at all. He was bold and confident and…unsettling. She saw all of those things and then some when he stepped out of his jeans and draped them over his duster. The flannel shirt went next and his muscled chest loomed into view, tapering to a flat stomach, lean hips and thighs sprinkled with black hair. He looked incredibly sexy in those snug boxer shorts. When his fingers slid into the waistband, she turned her head.
Heat that didn’t have anything to do with the water crept into her cheeks. “I just thought you could…give me a few minutes in here alone.”
“Oh, well…make up your mind. It’s getting a little drafty.”
His voice was directly over her, but she didn’t dare turn around or look up. She knew he was naked, and she had absolutely no intention of seeing Jake Madigan without his clothes. “Just…hurry up and get in, will you? And stay on the other side of the pool. I’ll just…close my eyes.”
The water rippled as he stepped in. After a moment, Abby opened one eye and looked over at him. Mercy. Not looking the least bit embarrassed about his state of undress, he stood in the pool, letting his body acclimate to the heat, then sank into the water up to his neck. His face screwed up, and he rose gingerly until the water only came
up to his naval. “Ah, damn. I forgot about the bandage.”
Concern fluttered through her when she realized the bandage had gotten wet. Forgetting about her state of undress, she moved closer to him. “I’m not sure this was a good idea. I mean, the heat could start that bleeding again,” she warned.
“It’s okay. It’ll be worth it to get warm.”
“I’ll put a new bandage on it when we get out.”
Leaning back against the rock he closed his eyes. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be warm.”
Abby moved to the other side of the pool, keeping one eye on Jake. She knew better than to indulge herself watching him. She had enough on her plate without adding regret to the heap. But it was hard not to look at him, even harder not to like what she saw. Not to want. In the last hours, she’d come to realize there was more to Jake Madigan than she’d ever imagined. She wondered where this might have led if the circumstances had been different.
Abby crushed the thought before it fully materialized. She’d had her fill of men. Even honorable men like Jake. She’d always believed Jonathan Reed was an honorable man. The people of Mercy General still believed it. They didn’t know that a predator existed beneath that perfect image. That beneath all that education, the righteous drive to heal the sick and wounded, the genteel manners of the talented surgeon and philanthropist was the heart of a killer shark.
Hapless Abby had fallen hook, line and sinker for the act. When the going was good and easy, he’d loved her as if there was no tomorrow. When things had gotten tough, he’d disposed of her like a pair of soiled examination gloves. It shamed her now that she’d loved him back. That she’d loved him even after he’d testified against her. That she’d been willing to settle for that.
God, she’d been naive.
“What are you thinking?”
She started at the sound of Jake’s voice, the water stirring around her. She opened her eyes, found him staring intently at her. She felt stripped bare by that piercing gaze, felt as though he’d been reading her mind.
“Nothing,” she said after a moment.
He continued to stare at her, his expression hard and slightly perplexed. “You were thinking about something. You get that little crease between your eyebrows when you think. It was working double time just now.”