Teddy holstered her gun and dropped to her knees. Most of the fight had gone out of Rope but he hadn’t given up the struggle.
“Godamighty, Rope!” she cried. “What in blazes happened? How’d you get left out here alone?”
Rope stilled. Rhys let him go.
“Teddy?” The bloodied man said uncertainly.
Teddy put her arms around her shaken friend, though in truth she was more shaken than he. His injuries looked severe and only a moment ago she had been berating Rhys for not shooting him. Thanks to Rhys’s restraint and no thanks to her, Rope was alive.
“It’s me,” she said softly, her voice trembling. “And Rhys Delmar.” She glanced up at Rhys who was testing his bruised and bleeding hand. He saw anguish in Teddy’s eyes but there was condemnation in her voice and he had to assume it was for him. “Round up those horses and get the canteens,” she demanded. “He needs water. Jeez, do I have to think for you?” Her labored sigh shook her whole body. “Dammit!” she cried, spotting the newest contusion on Rope’s battered face. “Look at his jaw. What were you trying to do, split it?”
“Ease off, Teddy,” Rope said weakly. “He was doin’ what he had to do when somebody starts shootin’. An’, dang it, I didn’t recognize you either. Tarnation I would have shot both of you, out of the saddle if I could have seen straight to do it.” His hand jerked up to his hairline, which was crusted with blood and dirt. “Danged road agents held up the stage,” he explained. “One of them nicked me and I was out cold a while. Reckon they left me for dead cause when I came to, the coach and everybody was gone.” He winced when his fingers found the spot where the bullet had creased his temple. “Gettin’ shot kinda fuzzed up my head and my eyesight, too,” he said. “Right now I’m powerful glad I couldn’t half see.”
“So am I,” Rhys responded, glad that Rope bore him no ill will for what was an honest mistake. As for Teddy, who could explain the illogical workings of her mind? Expect gratitude and she bit like a crocodile. And be damned if the tart-tongued, she-devil did not come close to making him want to get bit.
With fire in her eyes and her shoulders squared she was a woman to behold. And to be tamed. He relished the thought, though how the taming was to be accomplished bore a great deal of reflection. And now was not the time for it. He nodded compliantly, and, as Teddy had requested, Rhys set off to chase down the horses. He was not gone long. The well-trained animals had strayed only a short distance. Although they were wary, they seemed as glad to see him as he was to find them. As a precaution, however, he put hobbles on both mare and stallion after leading them to the road and nearer Teddy and Rope. No use chancing having to walk to the stage station should the animals get another fright.
Teddy had Rope propped and resting against a rock when Rhys got back to her. She had removed the cotton bandana that had been knotted around her neck. She was waiting for water to soak it in so she could clear the blood and dirt from Rope’s face. Upending one of the canteens, she wet the cloth while Rope swigged water from the other. She started mopping at the grime before he finished drinking.
“Dang it, Teddy, you got a heavy hand.” Flinching, he pulled the canteen from his lips and complained when she rubbed lightly over his bruised chin. “Give me that bandana. I’ll do it myself.” Gingerly, he started mopping but winced again as soon as he’d begun. “Owww! Reckon it’s too sore for air to hit,” he said, abandoning the effort and instead raising the canteen and pouring a stream of water over his face. Much refreshed, and with his pallid face brightening afterwards, he said, “Teddy, that Frenchman of yours throws a strong punch.”
“He’s not my Frenchman.” Teddy took the canteen from Rope’s hands. As she capped it, her snapping eyes were on Rhys, whose mocking grin annoyed her as much as Rope’s errant comment. “If he was, I’d crate him up and ship him back to France.”
“And I would go,” Rhys said, shrugging. “But let us now concern ourselves with what happened to Rope and to Strong Bill and the others. It may be that they too have been abandoned on the desert and if so we must attempt to find them.”
Rope hung his head. “Guess I didn’t want to remember,” he said grimly. “Strong Bill’s dead. He was shot through the heart before I got hit and fell off the box. We weren’t carrying no passengers but, well, Teddy, they got the shipment and the mail.”
Teddy swore and hoped neither Rhys nor Rope noticed the tears welling in her blue-green eyes. “I’ll see them hung for killing Strong Bill,” she swore.
Rope nodded that his sentiments were the same.
“Did you get a look at them?” Teddy queried. “Were they the same no-good crooks that have been hounding us all along?”
“That’s the peculiar thing, Teddy.” Rope exhaled slowly. “This was a new bunch an’ a more connivin’ threesome I ain’t never met. One of them was standin’ in the road with his saddle. Flagged us down like he needed a ride. When we slowed the team, them other two came ridin’ in shootin’,” he said tersely, pausing to rub sand from his eyes. “They meant to kill me an’ Strong Bill.”
“We should look for Strong Bill,” Rhys said noticing that nightfall was near. He had learned already that at night the desert was like a black sea with danger lurking beneath every wave.
“And get him buried,” Teddy said. She thought of Strong Bill’s body cast out on the desert for prowling scavengers to find and ravage. The image cut like a blade in her heart. She choked on a lump in her throat and looked away from the men. “Where did they...throw him?”
“Somewhere down the road,” Rope said. “They turned the coach around and—”
“We’ll find it too,” Teddy cut in, her voice wavering but determined. “Minus the strongbox.”
“That’s another strange thing, Teddy,” Rope said. “I heard them talkin’ when they was turnin’ the stage around.”
“About what?” Teddy asked, hopeful that Rope’s slowly returning memory of the event would yield a clue to the identity of the holdup men.
“About the coach,” Rope replied thoughtfully. “I swear I heard the big fella that was in charge say they were keepin’ it.”
“You must have heard wrong,” Teddy responded, urging the injured Rope to his feet, fearing the nick on the head had rattled him more than she’d first believed. “What would be the sense in it? I can’t think why any holdup men would want a stagecoach. Where could they hide it?” She gave Rope an encouraging pat on the back as he took a first unsteady step. “You must have heard wrong. We’ll find that coach, maybe without the team, somewhere between here and the next stop.”
“Maybe,” Rope mumbled.
Rhys loosened the hobbles from the horses’ legs and led the paint mare around for mounting. “Take Teddy’s horse,” he said to Rope. “She can double up with me. The stallion is plenty strong enough to carry two.”
She opened her mouth to angrily tell him he was deluded. But then she recalled that the three had only two horses. Since she and Rhys were the lightest load for the stallion, he had suggested a logical arrangement. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “Mount up. I’ll ride behind you.”
They had ridden almost a mile in the fading light when Rhys spied Strong Bill’s body a few yards off the roadbed. He heard Teddy sob twice before she slid from the stallion’s back and went running over to the dead man. She knelt over him while Rhys and Rope thoughtfully hung back for a few moments.
“Damn them!” she cried, lifting her face to the darkening heavens. “Damn them to hell! He was a good man. A fine friend. Why? Rope—” She walked off by herself when the men came up.
Rhys saw her sitting cross-legged on a rock as he and Rope scraped out an indentation on the desert floor, laid Strong Bill’s body in it and covered him with a mound of rocks. The moon was well into the sky when they finished and gathered around to recite a prayer over the dead man.
They made a camp nearby afterwards. Rope and Teddy skillfully collected enough debris to build a small fire. They were able to have warm food for supper. Rope settled into a bedroll and fell asleep shortly afterwards. Rhys and Teddy sat near the dying fire and watched the glowing embers dwindle away to darkness. Teddy sat stiffly, saying nothing, staring out into the night.
“I am sorry about Strong Bill getting killed,” Rhys told her.
“Why?” Her head snapped around. “You didn’t care about him,” she said bitterly.
“I care that any man would be shot down as he was.”
“You say.”
Rhys sighed. Her haunted face told more of her anguish than she wanted to reveal. Strong Bill’s death added another grief to the layers of sadness in Teddy. Rhys remembered what Rope had told him about her brother, how she blamed herself. He suspected, rightly, that she was blaming herself for Strong Bill’s death, too. He knew the feeling, lived with it. Because he understood how self-placed guilt ripped and tore at a person’s heart he wanted to give Teddy comfort, but could see he was not getting past the hard brittle shell she had closed around herself.
Determined to make her feel a little better, he persisted. “I know the feeling of losing a beloved friend, Teddy,” he said gently. “I know the pain and the anger and the frustration of wondering why it had to happen. I know how it feels to wish you could change what happened in a single day so the person you cared for would still be alive. I know how it feels to think you are responsible for what happened.”
“I am responsible.” Teddy got up and turned away from Rhys. “Strong Bill worked for me and that got him killed.”
Head down, she walked away from the camp. Rhys got up and followed. His footsteps were silent, but his words echoed from the big boulders strung out across the desert. “You couldn’t have known there would be another holdup,” he said.
She spun around. Her expression was as anguished as a hurt child’s. Her eyes were burning brightly in the pale moonlight as she stared in dismay at him. “I knew,” she said. “Bill knew, too. Somebody wants to put me out of business. Including you, I reckon.”
He stepped up close. Her hands were balled at her sides and she was trembling as if she were about to cry. “Wrong,” he said. “You’re entirely wrong about me, Teddy,” Gently he placed his hands on her shoulders and lifted her quivering chin with his thumbs. “I want the Gamble Line to flourish until you get your verification from London and I get my money. Beyond that I wish only that we could be friends.” Gently his thumbs stroked her jawbones, feeling the tension in her, the jolt of stifled sobs. “You need a friend.”
“I had a friend,” she said bitterly. “He’s dead.”
Rhys wrapped his arms around her. She would not permit herself to open up and cry. But now and then her body shuddered softly against him. Her held-back sobs knocked at his heart, making him forget that she was an intemperate, willful woman. He sensed he was seeing the other side of Teddy, finding the softness in her, the woman, an experience as uncommon as glimpsing the hidden side of the moon. She allowed him to hold her for a long while—not, he regretted to think, because he was Rhys Delmar but because he was there in a rare, vulnerable moment.
He did not plan to do more than merely offer Teddy solace. But in time the slow-burning heat of her, the soft sounds she made, the enthralling feel of her ripe breasts pressed into him, proved more than he could withstand. Desire, hot as an inferno, surged within him, quickening his loins, stirring his passion. His arms involuntarily tightened around her, his lips strayed to her temple and rained soft kisses on silky skin rendered pale as silver in the moonlight.
“I could hold you through the night, Teddy,” he whispered hoarsely. “Make the pain go away, if you let me. You would not be sad in my arms.”
His mouth moved over her face, a soft, tempting breeze that made her quiver and moan. His hands plucked away the plaited leather cord that held her hair in a long, tight braid. His agile fingers combed through the sun-lightened strands until her hair hung loose and free and shimmered around her like quicksilver loosed from a bottle. He wove his fingers into the flowing tresses, amazed at the fluid, silky feel of them. Lavender. A trace of the heady scent abided since the last washing—enough to make him imagine her naked lying in a bed of the fragrant blue flowers, her arms outstretched. Teddy. Loving him. Wanting him.
Teddy burrowed into him. She was hurt through—fraught with guilt that it was her stubbornness, her determination not to let go of her father’s dream, which had cost Strong Bill his life. Part of her wanted to throw up her hands and say, enough. Enough dying. Another part of her could not give up, could not let her father’s dream be forgotten or Bill’s death be in vain. Still another part remembered a truth she had been unwilling to admit. She had, despite her protestations, once felt brief but overwhelming pleasure in Rhys’s arms.
That part of her wanted to forget all the painful happenings of the day. That part, so long denied, so secretive, so unfamiliar, wanted to cling to Rhys Delmar, to seek a woman’s solace in his arms, to leave behind sadness and sorrow for a time, however short. That budding part, seizing upon the weakness that brought it forth, would not be denied, would not be shut out. It demanded to be heard, to be satisfied.
With a soft, throaty moan she gave in to it, so easy when he held her, when his kisses offered comfort and refuge. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around him, and plied her fingers into the rippling muscles in his back. He felt strong as the mountains, sure as the wind, warm as the heat of a roaring fire on a chill night.
Whispering his name, she lifted her face to his. “Hold me,” she said.
“Ahh, Teddy.” Her eyes shone out of the darkness, sparkling blue-green as a mountain pool. Her face reflected the iridescence of the stars—showcasing her finely etched features, her long shadowy lashes that brushed her cheeks, her lips as full and inviting as ripe red berries that begged to be tasted. Again.
He took the bounty offered, relishing what had been forbidden fruit—the sweetness of her, the nectar of her mouth—as his tongue stabbed past her lips and drank her in. He could not get enough of her, though he tried, his mouth plundering, assaulting, stealing what she was not quick enough to give.
He took her breath, left her giddy, reeling, anxious for more of his devouring kisses. Euphoric kisses. How they intoxicated. How they made her forget that she had wanted only to be held and comforted enough to dull the pain of loss. But she did not understand that emotions denied so long, so completely, once aroused would not be hers to command.
It was as if he had taken possession of them, whipping up a fierce, intense yearning that ran through her like a gale, a tempest in her veins.
She felt herself swept up in the storm. The earth was falling away beneath her feet. She saw the stars spinning brightly in the inky sky above. In a moment she was stretched out on a shadowed mountain peak, Rhys was alongside her, his hands cradling, caressing as the wind tugged at her clothes and fire lapped at her skin.
Incredible sensations sped through her. She felt weightless as a bird in flight, soaring too high, too fast. Terrified, tantalized, she wound her hands around his neck—holding on, guiding his mouth to her bared breasts, crying out as his lips brushed across her nipples, inflaming them. What was this power he had, this magic that awakened a woman she did not know, could not understand, a woman she feared would yield all to him?
“You will not be sorry, chérie, I promise you that,” he whispered, his breath warm and soft on her skin.
Chérie. Chérie. The word lashed like a whip. He had called that whore chérie and now he would make a whore of her. She cried out, a sudden, violent sound as if she had been awakened abruptly from a runaway dream that had been too real and terrible.
“Back off! Back off!”
Teddy drew her gun and swung the butt of it at him but he was not as passion-dazed as she. He ducked the blow and let her go, watched her scurry off from where he had lain her on the desert floor.
Cursing him, calling into question his ancestry, she punched her arms into the shirt he had stripped from her moments before, and viciously pulled the garment over her head.
Hair flying around her, she bounded back another step and kicked a cloud of dust toward him. Haloed in moonlight, she stood above him, an angry vengeful goddess with a hand clenched on the handle of her pistol.
“One day,” she said, threateningly.
Wanting her still, he lay where she had left him, counting himself a doomed man. He would have her or die. But he did not tell her so.
“One day, Teddy,” he said taunting, “you will not have that gun.”