Chris took a cookie but put it back on the plate. She realized that her hands were shaking and reached for Tynan’s glass of whiskey. In exchange, he took her milk and began eating the cookies.
“We’re going home tomorrow,” Ty said, not looking at her.
“And leaving Lionel to his own fate, I guess.”
“He’s not your problem.”
“Have you ever heard of Samuel Dysan?”
“No and don’t change the subject. Tomorrow we leave.”
“What if Asher doesn’t agree? That’ll be two against one.”
“Prescott can stay here for all I care, but tomorrow you and I leave for your father’s house.”
“Just the two of us?” she asked, running her finger along the whiskey glass.
He took the glass from her and drained it. “It’s time for you to go back to the house. You can say you hurt your hand on a sharp rock and couldn’t work anymore.”
Chris made no effort to move but picked up a cookie. When she was with him, she never wanted to leave. “How is your back?”
“Healing quite well thanks to Pilar’s gentle attentions. Chris, go away.”
She looked up at him with sad eyes. “I was wrong when I left you alone. I should have gone with you to the jail.”
“The world is full of should haves.” He stood. “I’m going back to work and I want you to go back to the house and stay out of trouble.”
“Maybe I should lock myself inside the bedroom with Asher.”
“If you can stand the boredom,” he said, slamming his hat on his head and leaving her alone in the cottage.
Reluctantly, Chris left the little cottage and started back to the main house. The sun was gone and the air was beginning to feel like rain.
“It’s gonna come a storm,” Unity was saying as Chris entered the kitchen. “What’d you do to your hand?”
Chris looked up—and into the dark, pretty eyes of Pilar.
“I cut it,” Chris managed to say after a while. No wonder Ty liked her; she was utterly lovely.
“Would you like a cool drink?” Pilar asked in a soft voice. “We’ve just made an herb tea. It’s quite good.”
“No,” Chris said, wishing the woman wouldn’t be nice to her.
“You look a little pale,” Unity said. “I told Mr. Owen you shouldn’t work outside. You’re too little to be able to stand the outdoors.”
Chris had no idea what being small had to do with sunshine, but it was the type of comment she’d heard all her life. “Yes, I would like something to drink.”
“Pilar made cookies. Have some.”
“No, thank you, I already did,” Chris said without thinking, then looked at Pilar. There was understanding in her eyes. “On second thought, I think I’ll lie down a while. Maybe the loss of blood is making me weak.”
Chris left the kitchen and was on her way upstairs when Owen called to her.
“Diana, could you come in here? There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Owen called from the parlor.
Chris knew it was the visitor she’d heard earlier and she wanted to meet this man, but as soon as she saw him, she stood still, unable to move. It wasn’t that the man was ugly nor was there anything outwardly repulsive about him, but she knew he was a bad person. He was tall, dark, and his face had probably once been quite handsome, but somewhere along the way his nose had been broken and there was a scar that parted one eyebrow. In spite of the slight disfigurements, he was still good-looking—but Chris didn’t want to walk inside the same room with him.
“Diana, don’t be shy,” Owen was saying. “This is a friend of mine, Mr. Beynard Dysan. He’s come to stay a while.”
“How…how do you do?” she managed to whisper, holding out her hand to him, although she very much didn’t want him to touch her.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Owen told me of your father’s unfortunate death. I’m sorry.”
She backed away from him. “Yes,” she murmured. “I cut my hand this morning,” she said, showing her bandaged hand, “and I’m feeling a little weak. If you’ll excuse me, I must go upstairs.” She fled before either of the men could protest.
Upstairs, she stood with her back to the door for a few minutes. Until now she’d not been sure there was anything wrong going on in this house. But after meeting Beynard Dysan, she knew he was involved in something evil.
She almost jumped when she heard the men on the stairs outside her room. Listening, she heard them walking up toward Owen’s office. She opened the door a bit.
“I’ll be ready to ride in about half an hour,” she heard Dysan say. “That way we’ll be sure of privacy.”
Chris closed the door. They were going to go somewhere to talk and if she wanted to find out what was going on, now was her only chance, because tomorrow Tynan planned to take her home.
She quickly dressed in her riding habit, then tiptoed down the stairs and left the house through the narrow door in the music room. She didn’t want anyone to see her. In the stables, she saw that the boy was busy saddling two horses and she slipped inside, chose a sleek black mare, saddled it and managed to get out the side door without encountering anyone.
It was easy to hide in the trees until she saw Owen and Dysan come out and mount, and it wasn’t difficult to follow them at a distance. They were traveling slowly, talking, Owen pointing at things now and then.
She followed them for about four miles, across a bridge over a deep stream, down a narrow road, when they turned right onto a path and disappeared. Chris waited several minutes at the crossroad then cautiously went after them. The trees were too dense for her to see very far ahead and her heart began pounding. It would be too easy to ride into them.
With her head bent forward, she listened as intently as she could over the mare’s noisy steps. Suddenly, she stopped because close ahead, she heard a loud laugh. Dismounting quickly, she tied her horse and began to move through the underbrush toward the sound of the laughter.
She’d only gone a few feet when she crouched low. Ahead of her, standing on a ridge, were Owen and Beynard Dysan.
“When do I meet Sam?” Beynard was saying.
“Soon now. I don’t want any trouble near my place.”
Beynard gave Owen a smirk. “So you can save your trouble for your nephew? I never met a more repulsive kid.”
Owen smiled. “Isn’t he? No one will mind when he meets his fate. See that timberland? This time next year it’ll all be mine.”
“How do you plan to do it?”
“That cousin of his will. Eskridge has already embezzled, driven a man to suicide, and he beats that little wife of his. It should be easy to prove he’d murder too.”
“What about the wife?”
Owen and Beynard exchanged looks. “She’s served her purpose. Shall we get on with this? I’d like to get out of here before this storm breaks.”
To Chris’s utter disbelief, the men turned in unison and started toward her. It was almost as if they knew where she was. Of course that couldn’t be but she crouched lower—and the men kept coming.
Then suddenly came the sound of a man whistling and both of them stopped—the men less than a yard from Chris’s hiding place.
“Hello!” came Tynan’s voice and Chris could have cried in relief. “I guess those horses belong to you, Mr. Hamilton.”
“What are you doing here?” Owen snapped.
Chris put her head up enough to see Ty. Over his shoulder was slung a couple of rabbits.
“Unity sent me out for rabbits.”
Chris wiped away the first drops of rain that fell on her face.
“And I wanted you in the garden,” Owen said.
Chris saw that Dysan, who’d been looking across the valley while Ty and Owen talked, turned to look at Tynan.
“And I expect you back there as soon as possible.”
“And withstand Unity’s wrath?” Tynan said cheerfully, blinking against the rain that was coming down steadily. “No thanks, I??
?ll stay here and get all three rabbits, just as I was ordered.” He paused as lightning lit the valley below them. “You gentlemen are sure gettin’ your fine clothes wet,” he said in a drawl.
For a moment, Chris held her breath, for the three of them looked for all the world as if they were going to shoot each other. Why? she wondered.
Dysan backed down first. “Let’s go,” he said, and, quietly, Owen followed him.
Chris crouched low in the bushes, trying to keep the rain out of her face and to keep Tynan from finding her.
There was no hiding to be done. Two minutes after the men left, he grabbed her arm and hauled her up before him. “I ought to take you over my knees. Do you know you could have been killed?”
Water was running off his hat onto her face. “How did you know where I was?”
“Pilar saw you going off and told me.” He had a nasty grip on her upper arm. “Now come with me.”
“But my horse, it’s—”
“You think they just left it?” He started down the hill the opposite way she’d come, pulling her behind him.
She kept her head down against the pelting rain, tripping along behind him. “Where are we going?”
“Home! To your father. You’ve taken twenty years off my life already and I don’t have many more left.”
“But what about Asher? They’re going to kill Lionel and blame it on Asher.”
“That’s his worry. You’re mine.” He stopped at a saddled horse and helped her up, then mounted behind her.
“Can we get back this way?”
“We can get to your father’s this way.”
“Tynan,” she said, turning in the saddle and putting her arms around his chest. “We can’t leave Asher there. We have to go back and warn him. Please.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes.
He studied her for a moment. “All right, damn it. We’ll warn him but then you go.”
“Yes, Tynan,” she said, still holding onto him as they rode. His muscles under her cheek completely blotted out the thrashing of the rain and the slash of the lightning.
He was traveling as fast as the laden horse would go when its front hooves suddenly came off the ground and Ty fought to control the horse and hold Chris in the saddle.
“Damn!” he said in a way that made Chris twist around to look. Lightning had struck the bridge, and the swollen stream was far too violent to cross.
“We’ll have to go back the other way,” Chris said, looking up at him.
“There is no bridge on the other side.”
He was holding the reins of the horse tightly, both of them drenched with rain, lightning all around them—yet Tynan made no effort to move.
“Hadn’t we better go?” Chris asked, wiping water out of her eyes. “This storm is getting worse.”
“There’s nowhere to go,” Tynan said. “We’re cut off from the main road and there’s only virgin forest north of us.”
“Ty! It’s getting dark. We can’t stay here all night. Is there any shelter nearby? The water will recede after the storm’s over.”
Ty didn’t answer, just sat there looking at the raging, deep stream.
“Tynan!” Chris yelled up at him. “Let’s go back into the trees. Maybe we can find a rock overhanging or something.”
“There’s a logger’s cabin near here.”
“Then let’s go.”
The horse was dancing about nervously and the rain was coming down harder, but Ty didn’t move.
“What is wrong with you?” she shouted.
“You are what’s wrong with me,” he yelled back at her, then turned the horse and started north.
Chapter Fifteen
The cabin had originally been for a surveying crew that had worked in the area and, since then, it had been maintained by someone, probably Owen since it was on his land—or Lionel’s as Chris insisted. It was one tiny room, completely bare except for a fireplace and a stack of wood. There was no furniture. Shortly after arriving, Ty had the horse stabled in a lean-to in the back and a fire going in the crude stone fireplace and the rabbits skinned, spitted and roasting. There was an abundant supply of dry firewood along one wall. Ty had removed the saddle and the bedroll and flung it into the cabin for Chris to take care of while he saw to the horse.
She removed the blanket from the bedroll and was pleased to see that it was relatively dry. Shaking it out, shivering against the wetness of her clothes, she began to be aware of just why Tynan had been so reluctant to stay in the cabin. With the rain coming down hard outside, the fire crackling warm inside, and with the prospect of removing her clothing and putting on the angle, loose blanket, she had an idea of what was going to happen.
With a whoosh of a sigh, she sat down on the saddle, the blanket clutched against her. What would her mother say if she knew what her only child was contemplating? Would she be horrified? Would Judith Montgomery have liked Tynan, this one-name gunfighter who didn’t even know what the word “home” meant?
Chris turned the rabbits over the fire and tried to think as calmly and rationally as possible. She’d never even considered the idea of seducing a man before. Sometimes she thought it was ironic that all a girl’s life she fought off men, starting when she was a child with her mother warning her against taking candy from strangers, and saying no until the very wedding day. Women were trained to say no, so how did she say yes now? Even more important, how did she say yes to a question that was never going to be asked of her?
She stood for a moment and gazed into the fire. Maybe Tynan didn’t want her and that was why he was able to resist all her advances. Maybe the beautiful Pilar was enough for him.
She shivered once against her wet clothes and began to peel them off, still staring into the fire and wondering what she was going to do—and if she should do it—when Tynan came back into the room.
Instinctively, she pulled the blanket up to cover her nude body.
Ty, after one quick glance, looked away from her to hang the bridle on a nail by the door, then removed his hat to pour the water out of the brim. “It looks like it’ll keep up all night. Are the rabbits ready?”
Chris wrapped the blanket around her and went to the fireplace to test the meat. “I think so but I’m not sure.”
She looked up to see Tynan staring at her and she realized that the blanket she wore was gaping open at both top and bottom. Ducking her head so he couldn’t see her smile, she looked back at the rabbits. At least she had some effect on him, if only to make him look.
“I’ll test them,” Ty said and that buttermilk voice of his was even richer.
She looked up at him through her lashes.
“Get back,” he said with force. “Go stand by the wall. No, not on this side, on the far side. Now stay there while I look.”
“Tynan,” she said, exasperated, “you act as if I have a contagious disease. I can assure you that I’m quite clean and free from all illness.”
“Hmph!” he grunted, tearing off a succulent, hot rabbit leg. His clothes were wet and they clung to his muscular body, outlining every hill and valley of his back. She could see where the whip marks had left some scars. “You are worse than disease, lady, you are poison.”
“Was prison that bad?” she asked softly.
“Unfortunately, the memory is fading. Here, take this,” he said as he removed the rabbits from the skewers. “On second thought, I’ll put it here and you can come and get it.”
“For heaven’s sake, Tynan! I’m not going to harm you. You act as if I were holding a rifle on you.”
He looked her up and down for a brief second. “I’d rather deal with twenty rifles. Eat that and then lay down over there and go to sleep. We’ll leave very early in the morning so I can get you back as soon as possible. Then, as soon as you get Prescott, we’ll leave again. I don’t want you near Hamilton.”
Chris stretched out on the hard plank floor, chewing on the meat while trying to get comfortable, but not succeeding. The blanket was small and her
legs remained uncovered from the knee down. She tried to put them under her but had no success. If she covered her legs, her shoulders were exposed to the cold, and if she covered her shoulders, her legs got cold.
“Will you hold still!” Tynan suddenly shouted.
She looked up at him in surprise. He was sitting on the saddle, chewing on a piece of rabbit and looking into the fire. “Well, Tynan, I’m just trying to get comfortable and not freeze to death.”
“It was your idea to come to this cabin so make the best of it and stop complaining—and go to sleep.”
“How am I supposed to sleep when I’m freezing to death? And why are you still wearing your wet clothes?” She sat up. “Look at your skin! It’s turning blue with cold. Is there anything that we can use for a coffee pot? I’ll make you something to warm you up.”
He didn’t bother to answer her or even acknowledge her presence, but just sat there glaring into the fire and chewing.
Chris moved to sit in front of him, and when he continued to look over her head, she took his hands in hers. “Is something wrong? Does this cabin remind you of something bad that happened to you? Maybe one of the outlaw gangs you’ve ridden with? Or the man who was your friend who was hanged?”
Ty looked down at her with an expression that asked if she’d completely lost her mind.
His hands were as cold as a piece of metal left in snow. She began to rub them between her own blowing on them, trying to warm him.
“Chris,” he said in a husky whisper. “I don’t think I can take too much more. Please go over there and leave me alone.”
“You’ll never get warm if you sit there in your wet clothes. You’d better take them off.” She looked up at him and she knew that what she felt for him was in her eyes, yet he didn’t seem to react at all. He just sat there looking at her, and if there was anything in his eyes, it was sadness.
She was about to say something else when suddenly he reacted. He grabbed her in his arms and pulled her up to put his lips on hers. If Tynan was good with buttons, he was even better with blankets. Before his face was touching hers, the blanket was off, flung somewhere across the room. Chris gasped when Ty’s cold clothes touched her warm, bare skin, but her arms went around his neck and pulled him closer.