“Well, I’m curious about what’s cooking in that pot.” He moved closer to her. “Maybe you could go hunting with me.”
“I can’t leave Pilar.”
“She can go with us. It’ll do her good to walk around some.”
“I don’t think so. I need to clean up around here and…”
Ty moved even closer to her, then put his hand to the side of her face. “Chris, please go with me. I promise I’ll behave. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”
She took a step away from him. He could use that voice of his to make a person’s resolve melt. “I shouldn’t. I should…”
“Should what?” he asked, following her as she backed away.
“Chris!” Pilar called. “I’d love to get some exercise. Could you go with Ty for my sake?”
“I…I guess so,” she began, looking into Tynan’s smiling eyes. “But don’t you try anything,” she warned. “I’m not going to give into you.”
His eyelids lowered. “Sweetheart, I haven’t even asked you yet.”
After Tynan had eaten most of the stew Chris had cooked, he took his rifle, helped Pilar to stand and started up the little trail behind the cabin. Chris complained twice about his walking on his injured leg, but he just grinned at her.
“Remember the time you and the Chanry boys robbed that bank down in Texas and—” Pilar began.
“Robbed the bank?” Chris gasped. “Robbed a bank!”
Ty winked at Pilar. “She thinks I’m as clean as a new snow, that I’m innocent on all counts.”
“I’ve seen you shoot people. I took him to a picnic and he got into a fight with a man and the man got shot. On a church picnic, mind you.”
“Rory Sayers,” Ty said to Pilar as if that were answer enough.
“I never met anyone who was asking for it more,” Pilar said. “Ty, didn’t you have a garden up here when you were a boy?”
Chris trailed along behind the two of them and felt as if she’d just entered a party and she was the only one who didn’t know everyone. Pilar and Ty talked easily about things that were meaningless to her. They exchanged names of people and places, fantastic happenings such as repeated brushes with the law, shootouts, the names of outlaws she’d only read about.
At the top of the hill, Tynan moved some underbrush about until they saw a little clearing. “It was here,” he said, “and I planted carrots and potatoes and strawberries. The strawberries didn’t make it and the rabbits kept eating the tops of the carrots as soon as they grew above the ground. Look at this,” he said, holding up a rusty can that had been flattened. “One of my first targets. I used to practice up here for hours.”
“Not much else to do,” Pilar said. “Is the old man’s gold mine near here?”
“Not far, just along that trail.”
Pilar turned and started walking but Chris held back. Tynan went to her, and, before she could stop him, he put his arms around her. “Feeling a little lost?”
She pushed at him but he still held her. “Of course not.”
“We could tell Pilar to go away and you and I could go into the bushes. I know a place that was made for making love. It’s quiet, secluded, near a little stream and flowers grow there all summer long. Would you like to make love on a bed of flowers?”
“No I wouldn’t,” she said, but there wasn’t much conviction in her voice. “I don’t want to be any man’s woman of no morals.”
“Morals? What do morals have to do with making love? Chris, honey, I could make you feel so good. We could make each other feel good.”
She twisted away from him. “Leave me alone, Tynan. I’m not going to be one of your women and you’d better get used to the idea. I’m going to go home to my father and I just might stay there and marry some rancher and have a dozen or so children.”
“Who do you have in mind?” he asked angrily. “Prescott?”
“I’m sure Asher would make a fine husband and he has asked me and I just might say yes. What does it matter to you, anyway? You don’t want to be saddled with a wife and kids. You’ve made your choice and I’ve made mine, so what do you have to complain about?”
She could see the anger in his eyes.
“You call yourself a woman of morals, but what’s the difference between selling yourself for a few bucks and selling yourself for a piece of paper and a gold ring?”
She glared up at him. “At least I get to choose what the price will be—not you.” She swept past him and continued up the trail after Pilar.
She found Pilar standing outside a dark hole that seemed to be the mine entrance, holding a rock like the one Chris had found in the chest in the cabin.
“It’s full of this stuff. I guess he thinks it’s gold and everybody is just too stupid to know that it is.” Pilar looked up at Chris. “Uh-oh, it looks like you two have been at it again.”
“No, we haven’t. He is the most stubborn man. He can’t seem to get it through his thick skull that when I say no, I mean no. Hasn’t any woman ever said no to him before?”
“I doubt it,” Pilar said seriously. “But then I’ve never seen him pursue a woman before you either. He usually just sits down and that face of his does the rest. At worst, he has to open his mouth and speak and if there’s one woman who hasn’t yet thawed, she will when she hears that voice of his.”
“I expect more from a man than just beauty and a nice voice. And Tynan doesn’t seem capable of giving that.”
In the distance, they heard the sound of a rifle shot. “I think he got us something to eat. Let’s go and meet him,” Pilar said.
When Chris seemed determined to stay where she was, Pilar took her arm. “In a few days your father will be here and you’ll never have to see Ty again. This is the first rest any of us have had in ages, so let’s make the most of it, all right?”
Reluctantly, Chris allowed Pilar to pull her forward. She wasn’t about to show anyone how the thought of never seeing Ty again made her heart jump into her throat.
When they found Tynan he was already skinning a small deer and Chris built a fire. Soon the smell of roasting venison filled the air.
“Nice place, isn’t it?” Ty asked, handing Chris a piece of meat.
She looked around and realized that this was the place he’d just described—the place where he’d wanted to make love to her. “It’s all right,” she said coolly. “Pilar, why don’t you tell us about the joys of married life? And about your children? How old are they?”
She ignored Tynan’s heartfelt groan as she turned her head and began listening to a homesick Pilar as she told about her husband and children. She didn’t gloss over the hardship of their lives, or dismiss the constant poverty and struggle, but there was a lovely sense of togetherness that Chris knew she wanted in her life. In turn, Pilar asked Chris about her newspaper stories and said how exciting all that must be.
“It was, but I’m ready to settle down.”
“She’s been ready ever since a certain party jumped out of a clothes wardrobe,” Tynan said from behind her, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “She thinks that if a man touches her, he has to marry her.”
“That’s not true at all!” Chris said, turning on him. “I don’t know why I ever thought I was in love with you. You are insufferably vain and are too used to getting your own way. I doubt if I’d marry you now if you were to beg me.”
“Don’t hold your breath. A week from now, I’m going to be free. I won’t have the responsibility of taking care of some spoiled little rich girl who thinks she can have whatever—or whoever—she wants merely by asking. I’m going to be free, you hear me? Not you or anybody else is going to take away my freedom.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Pilar said. “You sound like my two boys. Look, we have to spend the next few days together so why don’t we try to get along? Ty, you’re probably angry because you haven’t had any sleep and your leg hurts. Why don’t you lay your head in Chris’s lap and she’ll tell us a story? I’d offer my lap but I pl
an to stretch out here and sleep myself.”
Chris didn’t look at Tynan and there was a long moment of silence. “All right,” she said at last. “Maybe we do need some rest. You may use my lap.”
“Only if you swear this won’t be taken as a marriage proposal.”
“If you were one of my children,” Pilar said, “I’d smack you for that. Now lay down there and behave yourself.”
Chris leaned back against a tree and Tynan lay his head in her lap. For a moment, they were very stiff, touching as little as possible.
“I read a book in French last year, Le Comte de Monte Cristo, I could tell that story,” Chris said.
“Only if the people don’t get married and live happily ever after,” Tynan said, his head turned, his eyes closed.
“It’s a story about greed, betrayal, infidelity, murder and revenge. I think it might be your autobiography.’
“Sounds all right,” he said, snuggling his head in her lap.
“I’m sure the French nation will be pleased that you approve.” She started her story, telling of the revenge that began over two men in love with the same woman.
“Figures,” Ty grunted, but said nothing else while Chris’s voice began to soften as she told the story.
Within minutes, she heard the soft sounds of Pilar’s breathing as she slept in the drowsy afternoon. Tynan also seemed to be asleep, and, feeling safe, she began to stroke his hair back from his face. He looked so young with his face relaxed. There was a dirty bandage on his leg, dirty from his constant moving about the forest, showing through the hole in his trousers that the bullet had made.
She kept on with her story, even though she knew that both her listeners were asleep, but she liked stories and she liked to tell them. At the tragic end of the story, she stopped, her hand on the side of Tynan’s face, her fingers buried in the curls of his dark hair, and listened to the birds.
“I liked that,” he said softly into the stillness.
“I thought you were asleep,” she said and started to move her hand away.
He caught it in his own. “No, I wanted to hear the story. A store clerk told me that at about the time I was born, the miner sold him a book. I always wondered if it was a book from my mother and, if it was, what it was. I’ve always liked stories.” Idly, he began to kiss her fingertips, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
“Will you stop that?”
“Chris, if I were going to get married, I swear, you’d be the first woman I’d consider. In fact, thinking about living with you is the most tempting offer I’ve ever had. You’re pretty, enthusiastic in bed—”
She gave a sharp look at Pilar but she seemed to be sound asleep.
“And you’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever met. I’ve talked to you and told you things I’ve never told anybody, but, the truth is, I’m just not marriage material. I don’t think I could stay in one place for very long—that is, if I ever get out of jail where your father would throw me if I dared think I was going to marry his precious daughter. Don’t you see that it just wouldn’t work?”
Chris didn’t let the anger she felt show. It seemed that men could rationalize anything. He didn’t want to get married—was probably terrified of the idea—so he tried to tell her that he couldn’t because he was only thinking of her. “I understand completely,” she said with sympathy in her voice. “You don’t want to get married and I refuse to sleep with a man who won’t marry me. We’ll leave it at that.”
He turned his head to look up at her. “But, Chris, shouldn’t we take what happiness we can find? When we can find it? Before we’re separated forever and never see each other again?”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “Not on your life.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to start yelling at her again, but there was just the hint of a smile on his full lips. “You can’t blame a man for trying.” He turned his head again and resumed kissing her fingertips. “By my calculations, we have at least four more days before Prescott returns with your father. Who knows what will happen in that time?”
“I know what will not happen,” she said smugly, but Tynan didn’t seem to believe her as he began applying his teeth to her sensitive palm.
• • •
“There you are, old man,” Asher Prescott said as he readjusted the smelly man’s bindings for the third time. There was a part of Asher that was bothered by what they’d done: they’d taken the man from his home and now he was being bound hand and foot, yet the old man had done nothing to merit such abuse. So, when the old man had complained that the ropes were too tight, Asher had had pity on him and loosened them.
“I’m going to get some sleep now,” Asher said, rubbing his eyes. He’d been in the saddle for almost two days and he knew that if he didn’t rest, he’d never make it to Del Mathison’s house.
With one last look of sympathy at the old man who huddled against a tree, his little dark eyes looking suspicious, Asher settled down to sleep, using his saddle as a pillow.
The old man seemed as if he too slept, until he heard the soft snores from Asher, then he wiggled his hands and the ropes fell away. “Fool,” he muttered, looking at Asher’s sleeping form with contempt as he untied his feet. “Fool.”
He stood, making no noise at all, looked around a bit until he saw a large rock nearby then picked it up and crept toward Asher. He brought the rock crashing down on Asher’s head as he slept.
The old man stood over Ash for a moment, looking at the unconscious form before ransacking his pockets. It took him only fifteen minutes before he’d taken everything of value from Asher, leaving him lying there in his underwear only, his saddle and gun gone, no money, no boots. For a moment, the old man contemplated taking his underwear or at least cutting the buttons off, but he heard a horse in the distance and decided to get out of there.
As he mounted one horse, leading the other one, he began to mutter, “You think you’re so smart, Mr. Mother-Killer Tynan, but I know somebody that’ll pay to know where you are. I know somebody. I’ll show you.” He cursed and muttered as he traveled north toward the Dysan estate.
Chapter Twenty-four
Chris tried her best to stay away from Tynan for the next two days, but it was almost impossible to do. If she went for water, there he was. If she stopped for a moment to look at the scenery, there he was, his eyes on her in invitation. Once, she jumped when she heard something in the underbrush and Ty was there to put his arms around her and hold her. They heard shots in the distance on the morning of the second day and her heart was in her throat as Tynan, with rifle in hand, crept down the steep path to see who it was. She nearly cried with relief when he came back to tell her that it was only hunters and they were far away.
“Worried about me?” he asked, his eyes hot and showing his desire for her.
Chris picked up her skirts and fled from him.
“Anything wrong?” Pilar asked innocently. She’d taken over the cooking ever since Chris had ruined some of their precious flour trying to make biscuits.
“That man is the worst!” she said, her heart pounding.
“He certainly does like you.”
“Well, I don’t like him.”
Pilar snorted. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?”
“I think there were many things my mother didn’t teach me,” Chris said softly. “Such as how to say no to persuasive gunslingers. Pilar, I think I’m weakening. Two more days of this and I won’t be able to say no to anything he asks of me.”
“I have an idea Ty knows that.”
“Well, I have to be strong. I am not going to give into him and that’s final. No matter what he says to me, no matter how he looks at me, I’m not going to give into him.” She looked at Pilar with great sadness and worry in her eyes. “But if he kisses the back of my neck one more time, I’m lost.”
Pilar turned back to her biscuits with a smile on her face.
Chris succeeded in staying away fr
om Ty for the rest of the day but that night he asked her to take a walk with him.
“I didn’t ask you to run off with me, Chris, just take a walk,” he said when he saw her lips form the word ‘no.’ “I swear I won’t touch you since I know you can’t trust yourself with me, but at least—”
“Can’t trust myself with you! I most certainly can trust myself with you. I could spend the rest of my life on a tropical island with you and still resist you,” she lied.
“That’s great,” he said with a grin. “Then you can go with me into the moonlight right now.”
Chris knew she’d talked herself into a corner and so she appealed to Pilar for help, but Pilar refused to go with them, saying that her arm hurt too much. Of course it hadn’t hurt while she’d pounded dough, but now it was too painful for her to even move.
Reluctantly, Chris started walking up the little trail toward the spring, Tynan behind her.
“Are we competing in a road race or are you afraid to walk beside me?” he asked.
She stopped and turned toward him. “Of course I’m not afraid to walk with you. It’s just that you don’t realize how slow your sore leg makes you.”
“Is that it?” he said, smiling in a knowing way. He took her arm in his. “Then maybe you should help poor little invalid me,” he said.
They walked together for a few moments, Chris trying to stay away from him in spite of their locked arms.
“A few weeks ago, I couldn’t get rid of you. Every time I turned around, there you were, demanding that I take off my shirt or shoes, and the first few times I saw you, you weren’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Now, you’ll hardly get near me.”
“That was before,” she said, looking straight ahead.
“Before the night in the logger’s cabin? Before the night we made love and had such a wonderful time?”
“It wasn’t such a wonderful time to you. You told me you wanted nothing to do with me, that I was just one of many women to you.”
“Maybe I was a little hard on you that night, but you scared me to death with your talk of marriage and kids. Can’t you forget that and we could start over? We were getting on so well until you decided you just had to put that noose around my neck.”