I could happily spend the rest of my days in the company of my sweet-tempered daughter, but … can I expect her to spend the rest of her days in mine?
Ian MacDowell’s journal
“I want my clothes!” His voice boomed with such force, Scotty jumped.
“St-stay away from me!” With shaky fingers, she picked up the three-legged milking stool and held it in front of her like a shield.
Flattening his hand against his injured side, he stalked her, weaving slightly from side to side. “Dammit, now!”
Scotty stumbled backward looking around wildly for an escape. “Dinna you touch me.” Her voice wobbled with fear as she jabbed at him with the stool. Dredging up the remainder of her inner strength, she warned, “Try, and I’ll make you sorrier than a bull at a castration.”
“I don’t molest children,” he answered with a sneer, still clutching his side.
For a stupid, foolish moment, Scotty was insulted. She was not a child; she was almost nineteen. Her sensible thoughts returned. He might not molest her, but he could very well kill her.
He appeared to fight for breath. “I just want my damned clothes.”
“The clothes aren’t as damned as the man,” she mumbled under her breath.
“What was that?” His voice was menacing.
She shook her head. “An exchange,” she said loudly.
Swearing, he stepped backward until he met the doorway, then leaned against it “What do you want? You’ve taken everything I own.”
Still clutching the stool with one hand, she shoved the other toward him. “The knife.”
He backed up until he was in the cabin. When she came through, he handed her the knife, drawing it back before she could get it. There was an ominous look in his eyes.
“Now, how do I know you’ll keep your part of the bargain?” he asked silkily.
She gave him a scathing look. Oh, the man was slimy as skunk piss. “You don’t. But if you dinna give me the knife, I’ll toss your clothes and your precious gun into the fireplace.”
He gave her a bland smile, one that she noticed didn’t reach his eyes, then handed her the knife.
Briefly her eyes dropped lower. Heat flooded her cheeks as her gaze met that hairy, manly part of him. Even as it hung thick and relaxed against his thigh, it appeared threatening. Her gaze sprinting from him like a jackrabbit, she muttered, “You could have the decency—”
“I could,” he interrupted, his voice laced with sarcasm. “But I have nothing to hide. I’m just cold. And, dammit, if it bothers you, then give me something to wear.”
Grinding her teeth in frustration, she raced to the back of the cabin and pulled his wet clothes off the drying rack. She flew at him, tossing his clothes in his direction as she passed him. “There,” she muttered. “Now, sweet heaven, cover yourself.”
He reached down and picked up his long underwear, then frowned as he tested his shirt and his pants. “These are still wet.”
“Well, what did you expect?” She turned away and stirred up the fire. “They were soaked with blood. I told you I had to wash them, and this is hardly the kind of weather that encourages drying garments outside.”
He swore, the sound making her cringe. “Why in hell didn’t you hang them by the fire?”
“I … it slipped my mind.” Why hadn’t she hung them by the fire? She had no answer, other than that he’d caught her off balance from the very beginning.
“I can’t wear these,” he groused. “Hang them by the fire so they’ll dry.’
She swung around, his order grating on her. Her fist clenched the poker as if it were a weapon. “I’m not your servant, sir, and Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves. Hang the blasted things up yourself.” She quickly turned back to the fire, angry that he could so easily rile her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him pick up his wet clothes and make his way slowly to the fireplace. He draped his underwear over the wood box, his pants over the back of a chair, and hung his shirt on a nail that was pounded into the mantel. Then he stood there, naked as you please, and rested against the back of the chair.
She turned to put the poker away, her eyes lingering on his chest. Why she was attracted to the bloody criminal made no sense. It just made her mad as a scalded possum. “Oh, for the love of—”
She hurried to the back of the cabin again and rummaged through a box of her papa’s clothing. That the cur was twice her father’s size worried her, for she feared there was nothing she had boxed up that he could wear.
Relief washed over her as she discovered the stretchy leggings that resembled the bottom half of a union suit. Hurrying back to where he stood, she shoved the leggings at him. “Here,” she murmured, averting her eyes. “Put these on.”
With his hand on his wound, he lowered himself to the ottoman in front of the fire and jammed his feet into the garment, pulling them up to cover his privates. Then, he crawled into the bedroll and collapsed against the pillows.
Scotty held her breath until he’d covered himself. The snug underwear hadn’t even come up to his navel. That thick profusion of hair low on his stomach that she’d glimpsed earlier was barely covered by the stretchy fabric. And there’d been that intimidating bulge she’d met up with earlier …
Exhaling noisily, she hurried back into the cave and retrieved her milk pail. After pouring the milk into a glass pitcher, she stepped outside, scooped snow into the pail and cleaned it out. Once she was back inside and had put the pail away, she allowed herself to think further about the man and his unabashed nudity.
She was an innocent girl. Still, she’d thought that life in the woods would have prepared her for what she’d seen today, but it hadn’t. Once she’d realized he wasn’t going to kill her, or rape her, she’d allowed herself to gaze boldly at him. Even so, she still couldn’t be certain he didn’t have something wicked and depraved in mind. He was a wicked and depraved looking man.
But like it or not, she was fascinated by his body and the black hair that covered it. Having only her father and her dear friends, Jamie and Calum, whom she’d grown up with, to compare him to, she became preoccupied with the dark fur that matted the thug’s chest. To say nothing of the long, hard muscles in his arms and his thighs. She’d never even seen the boys without their shirts, not since they’d become men, but somehow she knew that neither of them had a body like that. She wasn’t even going to think about the healthy black bush that grew lower, providing a nest for his … plumbing.
She blushed. Plumbing. Stupid, silly word. Stupid, silly girl, too. She knew the name of it as well as she knew her own, and until today, she’d had no trouble saying it, much less thinking it. After all, it was only a natural part of life. However, she continued to blush, for she knew that what had happened today was somehow different.
She crossed to her father’s big chair and curled up in it Muggin appeared from behind the wood bin and hopped onto her lap.
“Well, you’ve made yourself scarce,” she scolded softly.
Muggin made a quiet purring noise and nuzzled Scotty’s hand with her nose.
“All right, all right.” She massaged the animal’s back, moving the skin around as she used to do her father’s when he’d been lying in one position too long.
Smiling ruefully, she gazed again at the lout on the floor. He was asleep on his good side, his large, hair-covered forearm clutching an extra pillow. She closed her eyes, wondering how it would feel to be nestled up against him, his arm around her instead of the pillow. Heat spread to her pelvis, and her eyes popped open.
She must be crazy. This was a man who had presumably dropped in out of nowhere. A man who still could kill her, or rape her. An odious man who took pleasure in embarrassing her and scaring the bloody wits out of her.
She fought to keep her eyes open. He was an ordinary thug. A thief at best, a murderer at worst. Either way, he was still dangerous, and she’d better not forget it.
A loud curse cracked the air. Scotty bounded out of the chair, still half-asleep and disoriented. “What? What?”
The shrieks that followed the curse cleared her head. Glancing at the window, she realized it was morning.
“Dammit!” the thug swore again. “There’s a wild animal loose in here.”
Scotty looked at him and bit back an amused smile. She gazed at Muggin’s handiwork with pride. The stranger’s beard, so full and bushy the day before, was now fashioned into four or five small, neat braids. She turned to poke at the fire, allowing her smile to spread.
“Muggin is not wild. She’s as tame as a house cat.” She lifted another log onto the grate. “She doesn’t mean any harm, and please dinna shout at her. It frightens her.”
“Frightens her? What about me?”
She avoided looking at him for fear she’d burst out laughing. “As long as you dinna shout at her, she won’t bother you.”
“Hell,” he grumbled. “I was asleep and she bothered me.”
Scotty went behind her privacy screen, splashed cold water onto her face and washed her hands. Glancing into the mirror, she appraised her tousled appearance. Muggin had unbraided her hair during the night, for the long, wavy mass hung over her shoulders, down past her breasts. Shaking her head at what she saw, she knew she had to get a moment of privacy sometime to pull herself together.
“What the hell—what’s it done to me?”
Wincing at his tone, she shoved her hair over her shoulders, and came out from behind the screen. He’d taken her mirror off the nightstand and was staring at his reflection. Under a black cliff of eyebrows, his blue eyes glistered angrily. Suddenly he looked up at her.
“Look what that … that nasty little shit did to my beard!” He dragged his fingers through his hair, loosening the braids. “It’s a raccoon, isn’t it? What in hell is a raccoon doing inside, anyway?”
She crossed to the small chest that held her spices and pulled out the drawer of tea leaves. “Yes, a raccoon. And she’s not a ‘nasty little’ anything.” Scotty tried to keep a lid on her temper as she spooned the dried tea into her mother’s old Staffordshire earthenware teapot.
“What in the hell is it doing inside? Shouldn’t it be outside, looking for other raccoons?”
Scotty gritted her teeth and pulled a small cast iron pot of hot water off the rise near the hearth, then filled her teapot. “For your information, the sight of another raccoon would frighten her to death, poor love.”
He grunted a sigh. “I don’t know much about raccoons.”
“That’s quite obvious,” she snapped, waiting for her tea to steep. “If you knew anything, you’d realize that once they’ve bonded with a human being, they can’t exist in the wild. The first creature they see when they open their eyes is the one they identify with. In Muggin’s case, that creature was me. So,” she added, trying to sound patient, “she considers me her mother.” She had no idea why she even bothered to educate this man. The last thing she really wanted to do was talk to him at all.
“Great. That’s just great,” he muttered. “You have a goat, a donkey, and I swear I heard chickens back in that cave. Now you’re telling me you live with a raccoon who thinks it’s human. It’s like living in a damned zoo … or a madhouse.”
Scotty bit back a trenchant remark. She glanced across the room at the small stream that trickled beneath the hammock. Her father had loved the sound of the water so much he’d diverted the river to flow through the cabin. If luck was with her, maybe the thug would trip, fall into the stream, and either freeze to death or drown. The picture brought a savage smile to her lips.
She checked her tea and found it ready. As she filled two cups, she suddenly realized he was probably very hungry. She supposed she’d have to feed him. Best to have him fit when she shoved him out into the cold.
“Who are you?” She crossed to the hearth and handed him the tea.
Raising himself up on his elbow, he took the cup from her. After taking a healthy swig, he grimaced, like he’d just swallowed pig swill. “Who do you think I am?”
She didn’t answer. She was curious to know who had shot him, but she really didn’t want to know any more than that. The less she knew, she figured, the better. Once he was gone, she wanted to forget that he’d disrupted her life at all.
“You’re Scotty MacDowell.”
She swallowed a gasp and stared at him. “How did you know my name?”
The smile he gave her was more like a smirk. “I make it my business to know.”
A wash of fear weakened her knees. “And … and what business might that be?”
He put his cup on the hearth and lay back against the pillow. “I thought you might already know.”
She frowned. “How would I know? All I’m sure of is that whatever you do, it must be illegal. Why else would someone shoot you?”
“Maybe I’m simply a logger and someone mistook me for an animal.”
She sniffed expressively. “A coyote, no doubt.” Giving him a level glance, she added, “If you’re a logger, someone probably shot you on purpose.”
“Meaning what?”
She stood, went back to the counter and started breakfast. “Loggers aren’t welcome here.” She glanced back at him briefly. “Do you know why?”
“I imagine you’re going to tell me,” he answered wryly. He flung his arm over his eyes, drawing Scotty’s reluctant gaze.
She couldn’t pull her eyes away from his upper arm. Even at rest the muscles were well defined beneath the sand-colored skin. Her stomach fluttered, and, despite the number of times she’d scolded herself for thinking about him at all, she had the urge to walk over, grasp his muscles and squeeze, just to convince herself they were as hard as they looked.
Dragging her eyes away, she turned back and concentrated on the food. “They rape the land for profit,” she finally said.
“You don’t agree with prudent thinning of the forests?”
“Fiddlesticks!” she shot back at him. “That’s just an excuse for what they’re really doing. Do you know,” she added, pulling out cold cooked potatoes from a tiny icebox, “that the Indian doesn’t use fresh wood unless the tree was blown down in a storm, or otherwise unusable?”
“Do you think we all should live like the Indian?”
“Of course not.” She began cutting up a potato with precise, thoughtful movements.
“How did your father feel?”
She swung around and stared at him. “What do you know of my father?”
He casually waved away the question. “Nothing, really. But it’s no secret that he preferred the woods to civilization.”
She stopped working, memories of her father softening her anger. “Papa was an idealist. A dreamer. I … I know it’s not realistic to think the way he did.”
“How did he feel about the sheep ranchers in the valley?”
She shrugged. “The sheep have to survive, like everything else.”
“It didn’t bother him that the sheep are literally destroying the very land he loved so much?”
“He didn’t believe that, and neither do I,” she said with conviction. “It’s the loggers. They’re the ones who are ruining the valley, coming in and cutting down the trees left and right. It’s no wonder we’ve had more avalanches this winter.”
“And why is that?”
She tossed him a look of disbelief. “Because trees form a barrier against the snow. When the trees are gone, there’s nothing to hold it back.”
She took out three precious eggs and whipped them with a frenzy. “The logging industry is raping the land.”
“There must be a happy medium.”
She stopped punishing the eggs and stared into the fire, remembering how adamant her father had been on the subject. “I suppose. But I don’t think lumbermen know what it is. It seems to me they want it all. They’re feeding the rich man’s greedy vanity. They’re to blame for the opulent waste in the mansions on that grand hill in San Francisco.”
He snickered. “Which hill is that?”
She gave him an impatient look. “I just told you. The one with all the mansions on it.”
“There’s Rincon, there’s Russian—”
“Oh, not Russian. No, sir,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “That’s where all the bohemians live, isn’t it? Shameful people, they are. Just shameful, flaunting their arty, unconventional ways.”
He let out a full-blown chuckle. “Now, how would you know that?”
She shrugged. “Papa told me.”
“And you don’t think you’re just the least bit unconventional, living out here by yourself?”
She stopped and gave it some thought. “Well, I guess when you put it that way, maybe I am.”
He was quiet for a moment then said, “So, you’re blaming the logger for all the problems here in the valley.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head violently. “Oh, no. It’s the bloody government. If the loggers dinna ruin us, the government will.” She felt angry heat spread up her neck. “I think even I would shoot a government man.”
Suddenly she realized that his civilized conversation had lulled her into a false sense of security. Needing to keep from softening toward him, she dredged up the terror she’d felt the day before when he’d had his knife at her throat, and the humiliation when he’d ordered her to undress. She turned back to cooking their breakfast, steeled against him once more.
“I’d like a bath after breakfast.”
The order grated on Scotty, but she knew he needed to wash. His hair and beard were dirty, and she’d only cleaned his wound site. “I’ll get you the water, but dinna go expecting me to bathe you.”
He chuckled, a deep, tantalizing sound that nuzzled her skin like a kiss. “I’d tell you that you don’t know what you’re missing, but you already know that.”
She flushed to the roots of her hair. Although she deserved that remark for ogling him so openly, the fact that he’d voiced it rekindled her anger.
After they’d eaten, she dragged in the washtub and poured hot water in with the melted snow. As he began to undress, she scurried into the cave, relieved to have a few minutes alone. Suddenly it dawned on her that she’d volunteered far more information than she’d gotten. He was a very clever man. He’d divulged nothing, not a single solitary thing, about himself.
Scotty stepped into the cabin from the cave and surveyed the room. Every time she had to leave the stranger alone, she returned and studied everything to make sure he hadn’t, for whatever reason, rifled through her things, looking for his weapon—or finding a new one. Her gaze scanned the wall of stone and plaster near the fireplace. Long-handled ladles and spatulas hung from hooks at the low end of the pitched roof, and snowshoes were suspended on the wall next to the fireplace.
The rolltop desk still had a fine layer of dust on it, something she’d purposely left to make sure he hadn’t rummaged through it, looking for his gun. A stream of sunlight glinted off the shiny brass batwing handles.
She glanced at her cur of a patient, and found him watching her. Her foolish, girlish pulse jumped. She eyed him cautiously. He looked a bit feverish.
“Are you feeling all right?” It wouldn’t do to have him catch a fever. That would only prolong this misery, and she wanted him gone more than anything.
He watched her as she approached, and his eyes seemed to probe through to her skin. “I’m doing fine,” he growled, pulling his gaze away. “I need a shave.”
She stood back and studied him. He clearly looked like the devil himself. Aye, she’d help him shave. She was anxious to see the man beneath the beard, yet part of her feared it as well. She was already strangely, foolishly attracted to this man, a cur who could be running from the law for frightful crimes against women and children. What if under all that thick, black hair was a man of princely beauty?
Shoring up her strength, she realized it didn’t matter what he looked like. Handsome or homely, he was a common criminal. No decent law-abiding woman, which she certainly was, should find that sort of man worthy of her thoughts at all.
Scotty gathered her father’s shaving utensils. She handed the stranger a mirror. “You’d better take one last look. Who knows,” she added cryptically, “maybe you’ll want to keep the beard as a disguise.”
He gave her a dark look, then glanced into the glass. “I look like Attila the Hun.”
Scotty quietly agreed. She was very anxious to shave him, fervently hoping to reaffirm her expectations that under all that black hair was a homely man with bad skin and no visible chin.
She picked up the scissors, checking the sharpness of the blades on a thread from her shirt.
As she cut away the long hair, she realized how pleasant it was to touch him. She’d noticed this many times before. Each time she changed his bandage she’d discovered, much to her dismay, that it was no longer a chore, but a treat.
It was odd, but even though she still considered him a threat to her life, she found it harder and harder to convince herself of it. After just a few days, they’d almost settled into a comfortable quiet—until she thought about his big, hard body, and how easily he paraded it around in front of her. Oh, he’d not been naked again, but she remembered him that way, just the same.
She sneaked a peek at the base of his neck where the hair sprang out between the edges of his shirt. Swallowing hard, she realized that the hair was so thick, it even pushed out through the open buttonholes.
Clearing her throat, she concentrated on the task of clipping off the hair that grew under his chin. She noticed that he had his own smell. It was a hard smell. Clean, intimate, warm.
When she’d finished with the scissors, she swept the wet brush across the “scuttle” shaving mug that had belonged to her father, and soaped his face. He closed his eyes, appearing to relax … until he felt the razor on his neck.
His eyes flew open. “What in hell are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” she countered, the razor poised at his throat.
He eyed her hand. “I hope you know how to use that thing.”
“Why, no,” she answered with exaggerated innocence. “I’d thought to practice on your precious Adam’s apple, maybe slice away the peeling, then plunge the knife into the core,” she finished with morbid glee.
He pulled back quickly, stopping her hand with his.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she huffed. “It’s no secret that I want to be rid of you, but I’d hardly slit your throat in my own cabin and have you bleed all over my nice cedar floor.”
He grunted, releasing her hand. “No, I suppose not. You’d probably do me in back in that dark, mysterious cave of yours where no one would find my bones for a hundred years.”
She hid a smile. She’d been so certain that he was going to kill her, and now, for some foolish reason, he thought she was a danger to him.
As she pulled the razor through the soap and remaining beard, she began to notice his features. His cheekbones were sharp and high, as if somewhere back in history one of his female ancestors had been bedded by the infamous Genghis Khan. Thoughts of such things made her warm, and suddenly her nipples drew up tight against her flannel shirt.
“Are you finished?”
She started, unaware that she’d stopped working. “No, it’s not … not smooth and clean yet.”
“Well, don’t take all day,” he grumbled.
His eyes were closed, so she made a face at him, then pulled his nose to one side, almost flattening it against his cheek.
“Ouch! It’s not made of rubber, you know.”
“Well, pardon me all over the place, your majesty,” she answered, piqued. “I hope you can do this by your bloody self the next time.”
“You can’t possibly want that any more than I do.”
She drew the razor gently over his lower cheek, sucking in a quiet breath when she discovered the strong line of his jaw and the powerful square chin.
When she finished, she took a damp towel and wiped his face clean. Rising from the stool, she stared at him, trying to hide her frantic disappointment. No ugly, pockmarked, chinless troll, here. He was a beauty. A bonny, bonny man.
Her gaze drifted to his mouth. His lips were parted slightly, and she could see the edges of his teeth.
She glanced into the fire, ordering herself to move away before she did something she’d regret. Some quiet inner force pulled her gaze back. She stared at his mouth, wondering what it would feel like against hers.
Suddenly, she realized he was looking at her. His fingers came up and lightly traced the reddened mark on her neck.
“I did this to you.”
She nodded, his touch making her tremble.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She couldn’t pull her gaze away. Her blood raced and her heart thumped as she moved her face closer to his. Logical thought took flight like a scattering of crows. She leaned toward him, and touched her lips to his.
Warmth seeped into her stomach and her heart continued to bump hard. Suddenly afraid, she jerked away, but his arm came out and pulled her onto his lap. He pressed her closer, taking control of the kiss.
She was light-headed, and she’d all but stopped breathing.
“Come on, sweet,” he urged, moving away briefly. “If you’re going to kiss me back, you have to breathe.”
Suddenly she was breathing rapidly, erratically as his lips closed over hers again. The warmth of them made her dizzy with a new kind of urgency. Sensations she’d never dreamed of—heat, fire, wave after wave of desire—coursed through her as she followed his lead, moving her mouth over his, following the unspoken instructions of erotic hunger.
Suddenly his tongue grazed her lips. Startled, she pulled back and stared at him.
“What …” she croaked, “what are you doing?” Slowly she slid off his lap and edged away from him. Her gaze clung to his mouth, and her heart hammered.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Fright? She would hardly call it that. Excitement … enjoyment … pleasure … surely surprise, but merciful Mary, never fright.
She licked her lips, tasting a trace of him, that special, succinct morsel of flavor that wasn’t her own, on her tongue.
“Why—” Her voice squeaked and she cleared her throat. “Why did you do that?”
His hot look made her shiver. “You started it, you know.”
He was teasing her again. It puzzled her, frightening her far more than his anger. Frantic to get away, she grabbed her jacket and bolted through the entrance that led to her animals.
The air was colder in the cave, but she sucked it into her lungs and slumped against the wall, her jacket draped over her arm. One hand came up and touched her mouth, the kiss still making her skin tingle. What a thing for one person to do to another….
She shrugged into her coat and stepped to Glory’s stall. “Come on, girl,” she urged, slipping the rope harness over the mule’s head. “Let’s take a walk.”
She led the animal out through the other sheltered opening into the crisp evening air. She wouldn’t go far; it was already dark. The night sky displayed its most impressive array of twinkling stars, some trailing across the darkness as if tossed from a bucket, others arranged in shapely clusters.
She guided the animal over the path she used for exercise, letting her mind fill with thoughts of the man inside. Again, she wondered who he was. She was no longer afraid of him—at least not the way she’d been at first.
Thinking about her foolish behavior just moments before made her cheeks flush hot in spite of the cold air. As she relived the kiss, heat diffused through her stomach, plunging lower. She hadn’t thought it was possible to have so many emotions clamoring inside her, itching to get out. Itching. She shivered. That was the word, all right.
She led Glory around the trail again. She’d have to hold her head high and pretend the kiss hadn’t bothered her. Surely she could do that, she thought, ignoring the pulsating heaviness in her lower belly. Yes, surely she could do that. Dragging the heavy, cold air into her lungs, she prayed for strength.
After leading her mule back into her stall, Scotty took a deep breath and stepped into the cabin. She glanced at the thug, then tore her gaze away, moving to the counter behind him as she prepared her tea.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said quietly.
His soft, silky voice unnerved her and she almost dropped the kettle of hot water, banging it hard against the counter. “I dinna think we have anything to talk about.”
“This isn’t about that.”
Of course not, she thought grimly. The kiss surely meant nothing to him, while it had thrown her into a whirlwind of emotions.
“Will you come here so I can look at you?”
“Why?” Lord, she didn’t want to look at him at all.
“I don’t want you smacking me on the head with that kettle after you’ve heard what I have to say.”
Curious, she slowly came around and sat down in the rocking chair across from him. “So? What is it?”
“You wanted to know who I am.”
She looked into the fire. Her emotions were a-tumble as her insides fought for space, forming a lump in her throat. “You’re finally going to tell me?” Somehow her voice squeezed past the lump.
He nodded. “My name is Alexander Golovin. I’m a lawyer from San Francisco.”
She turned, unable to hide the surprise in her eyes. “Why did someone shoot you?”
“I told you, he didn’t like what I do for a living.”
Fear danced along her spine. “And … and what is it you do?” Her fingers clutched the arms of the rocker, causing her knuckles to go white. Merciful heaven, she truly didn’t want to know.
“I’ve been commissioned by the state of California to see that you and all your possessions are moved off this land.”