Hud skidded to a halt on the embankment overlooking the isolated oasis. Twilight glowed in the western sky and the spring-fed pool glistened invitingly. A small campfire built according to military specifications flickered in the gathering darkness.
“Well, hell,” he muttered in frustration. The scene was entirely too cozy and welcoming for a man who was having a devil of a time battling his attraction to a woman who was completely off-limits to him for a dozen good reasons.
To make matters worse, “walking temptation” had bathed and dressed in trim-fitting breeches, a shirt and boots that displayed every curve and swell she possessed. And she had plenty of them in all the right places, he noted as his all-consuming gaze flooded over her.
How was he supposed to remain indifferent to an alluring female like Bri? His shoulders sagged defeatedly, but he did his best to shore up his willpower as he followed the narrow footpath downhill. When Bri glanced up and smiled, another chunk of the armor surrounding his heart broke loose.
“Rabbit for supper?” she said, nodding her curly red blond head toward the game he carried in his hand. “Sounds good. I’ll clean it and put it on to cook while you bathe. I found some wild plums and a few berries to go with it.”
Hud surrendered the rabbit that dangled from his fist. He was so busy watching the provocative sway of her hips and the enticing jiggle of her breasts beneath the cream-colored shirt that he was hopelessly distracted and didn’t even notice her grabbing it.
Immediately his traitorous thoughts circled back to the previous day when he had bounded downhill to the creek to see Bri’s exposed thighs after she retrieved her derringer to shoot the striking rattlesnake. He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw and told himself to think about anything except how appealing Bri looked. But when he took a deep, steadying breath, her fragranced soap instantly became his favorite scent.
“Are you okay? You look like you’re in pain.”
Hud jerked to attention to see Bri staring worriedly at him. He was in pain all right. She was the cause of it…and the cure, if she were so inclined. But Commander Price would kill them both, so appeasing his desire for her was out of the question.
“I’m fine,” he said shortly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She cocked her head to the side and squinted at him. “You’re also cranky all of a sudden. Mind telling me why?”
“I’ve missed out on a lot of sleep lately.” He peeled off his vest and hooked it over the pommel of Rambler’s saddle.
Thankfully, she let it go at that and he hurried off to soak in the bubbly pool. Ten minutes later Bri ambled from the shadows of the trees while he was lounging in the water.
He elevated a brow and gave her a go-away stare. “Yes?”
Nonchalant as you please, she sank down cross-legged on his discarded clothing. “You were going to tell me about Speck,” she prompted.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“What happened?” she persisted.
He glared at her, not that it fazed the strong-willed female. He was beginning to realize that she wasn’t scared of much of anything. “Are you going to interrupt my bath every blessed day?”
She pretended to think about it then grinned, undaunted by his scowl. “No. If you recall, I didn’t interrupt your bath the second day I met you.”
Another corner of his heart eroded when she flashed him an impudent smile and batted her eyes playfully at him.
“Supper is cooking so we have plenty of time for you to tell me what happened. I was going to wait you out, but I decided now is as good a time as any.”
Maybe it was time to get it off his chest. He’d kept it bottled up inside him for almost two weeks. “Speck and I were on patrol, checking a report of two bandits who robbed a stage station south of Tascosa. Rambler picked up a rock in his shoe and was favoring his back left leg so I had to take time to let him heal properly. Speck decided to scout the area and question the station attendant while I remained in camp with Rambler for a couple of days.”
“He didn’t return when he should have,” she concluded.
“No, he didn’t…You might as well make yourself useful. Toss me the razor,” he requested.
Bri scooped up the razor he had placed on the edge of the pool then she lobbed it to him. Hud became sidetracked watching her walk away in those trim-fitting black breeches. Scowling at himself, he lathered his face and hair with soap then soaked his head, hoping to drown the titillating vision in his mind. Not that it helped one whit.
“I found Speck a day later. He’d been shot in the back. I killed the three coyotes standing over him. His money and his badge were gone. I buried my friend and vowed to hunt down the bastard who murdered him.”
The memory caused his heart to twist in his chest and the resentment of being removed from the search for the killer to take escort detail gnawed at him again. He didn’t want to be here with Bri. He didn’t want to like this woman who challenged him, aroused him and kept him from his manhunt. She set off such a riptide of emotions inside him that he battled himself constantly.
“I’m so sorry, Hud,” she whispered. “I was serious when I volunteered to travel without you so you can track the killer. You admitted that I’m not the greenhorn you thought I was.”
“No, you aren’t,” he agreed, “but this is wild country where two sets of eyes are better than one. With luck, the other Rangers will have gathered information. They might have taken Mad Joe Jarvis and Pete Spaulding captive during my absence.”
She stared curiously at him. “How did you find out about the killers?”
“I questioned the stage agent and he gave me a description of the two men. He reported that Joe seemed more bloodthirsty than Pete. Joe pistol-whipped the agent and Pete tried to get his drunken cohort to back off.”
“Joe and Pete?” She snapped up her head and stared intently at him. “What do these men look like…?”
Her voice trailed off when an eerie scream echoed around the canyon walls. She bounded to her feet to jerk Hud’s Winchester from the sling on Rambler’s saddle. In the meantime, Hud waded ashore. He snatched up his breeches and hurriedly stepped into them while Bri charged off to protect the horses. He hobbled barefoot across the pebbles and spotted the oversized panther perched on the ledge above Bri’s horse, which nickered fearfully and strained against the tether.
Hud forgot to breathe when the tawny-colored, one-hundred-fifty-pound cat turned its deadly attention on Bri. When the cat screeched again then gathered itself to pounce, Hud reached for his pistol—and cursed foully because he didn’t have his holsters draped around his hips.
A second later he realized he didn’t need to be armed because Bri had assumed a shooting stance and snapped the rifle into position against her shoulder. When the muscular cat leaped through the air, she aimed and fired.
To Hud’s amazement, the giant cat dropped like dead weight. It hit the ground with a thud and lay unmoving ten feet in front of her. Bri, however, yelped and stumbled back because the rifle kicked hard against her shoulder.
“Ouch,” she grumbled, rubbing her upper arm. “Your cartridges must pack as much firepower as cannonballs.”
Hud was unwillingly impressed with Bri’s marksmanship and her ability to remain cool and steady under pressure.
First the rattlesnake, then the mountain lion. Hell, what does she need me for?
“I’m going to finish my bath,” he mumbled as he pivoted in the direction he’d come. “I’ll dispose of the carcass later.”
On the way back to the pool, Hud kept picturing the gun-toting heiress on the arm of the dandified politician of a fiancé. Bri was right, he realized. Powell would have been a disastrous mismatch for her. Despite Hud’s original misconceptions, Bri didn’t need a man to protect her. She’d proved that she was pretty damn good at it herself.
In fact, she didn’t need Hud any more than he needed her. And he didn’t need her, he assured himself as he walked gingerly over the sharp pebbles to reach the pool.
It was wanting her that was giving him so much trouble.
“Pete? We were wondering if you might’ve crossed paths with our friends Ellie and Hud.”
Joe glanced up belatedly and reminded himself that he was answering to Pete Spaulding’s name these days. He squinted at the three boys, who stood like stair steps in front of him.
“Ellie and Hud?” he repeated before he gobbled another bite of the tasty meal.
The stocky little brat nodded his blond head. “They headed southwest this morning.”
“Ellie was wearing a gray dress and bonnet and riding a sorrel gelding,” the frizzy-haired kid added helpfully.
“Hud is a Ranger and he rides a black horse. He was wearing a dark shirt, vest and breeches,” the gangly adolescent spoke up.
Joe snapped to attention when he remembered the woman in gray, who’d turned him down flat in the hall at Brazos Hotel a few days earlier. The same woman, it turned out, that he and Pete had been paid to kidnap. But she had vanished into thin air before he could get his hands on her. And that had sent him into a drunken rage.
Although Joe had been drinking heavily at the time, he remembered that dandified Powell character boasting that the woman was the daughter of some uppity government official connected to the Rangers. Despite her drab gray dress, she was supposedly wealthy and well-connected.
“Sorry, boys, I didn’t see anything of ’em.”
The boys’ shoulders slumped in disappointment. Not that Joe cared. He had no use for brats. When the kids wandered off to bed down for the night Joe grabbed his bedroll and strode off by himself. After a few drinks and some pensive deliberation, Joe smiled wickedly.
If he could catch up with the woman and take her captive, he could make a pile of money from two sources at once. The woman’s father would pay to have her back and her fiancé would pay to keep it quiet that he’d hired Joe and Pete to abduct her. Once Joe collected both ransoms, he’d be set for life. He could make a new start and settle down where nobody knew him.
“Hell of an idea,” Joe mumbled then guzzled some whiskey. First thing in the morning he’d ride off to overtake the lady and dispose of the Ranger.
The wind picked up and whistled around the canyon walls sometime after midnight. Bri watched the glowing embers from the campfire dance over her sleeping pallet. The cold north wind sent chills down her spine and the drifting smoke clogged her nostrils. She needed to gather her bedroll and move upwind from the fire.
Unfortunately, Hud had bedded down on the north side and she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to be too close to him.
“How long are you going to lie there eating smoke and dodging flying sparks?”
At the sound of his deep, resonant voice, Bri stared across the glowing coals. The reflection of light in Hud’s golden eyes was downright eerie. So was the rumbling noise that swept along the caprock overhead. It reminded her of a thundering herd stampeding in the night.
“What is that sound?” she asked as she propped her head in her hand.
“According to the Comanche it’s the combined spirit of more than a thousand horses that Colonel MacKenzie’s soldiers slaughtered and left to rot when they attacked the camp,” Hud explained. “When the moon is full, like tonight, and the wind howls to foretell of a coming storm, the ghost herd thunders across the escarpments and plunges down the gullies in this place that was once known as the Comancheria.”
Normally Bri wasn’t a superstitious sort, but the haunting sounds that gushed down the canyon walls, not to mention the effervescent shadows floating over the caprock, were getting to her. She rolled to her knees and gathered her bedding. She would rather be tempted by her maddening attraction to Hud than to be trampled by ghost horses.
“Scared?” he teased when she tossed her bedroll down beside him.
“Of course not,” she said with bravado. “I simply can’t tolerate being separated from you. Besides, the wind is cold and I figure you’ll generate valuable heat.”
The moment Bri stretched out beside him she felt reassured and comforted. That was not a good thing to know. She was battling a lusty attraction already. Taking comfort in Hud’s presence contributed to her mounting frustration.
“Better?” he murmured from so close behind her that his warm breath skimmed over her neck.
Desire rippled over her and hot tingles chased each other through her all-too responsive body. “I haven’t decided whether this is better or not,” she muttered.
When he draped his arm over her waist and pulled her against his muscular torso, the tantalizing sensations assailing her became even more pronounced. All she had to do was roll to her back and she could kiss him for as long as she wanted. No one would know of her lack of self-control.
But he will know that you’re exceptionally vulnerable to him, came that sensible voice in her head.
Bri tensed when Hud’s hand curled around her hips and he gently rolled her onto her back. Her heart thudded against her ribs while she stared into those mystifying amber eyes. Forbidden need delivered another devastating blow to her faltering willpower, leaving her stumbling along the crumbling edge of self-restraint.
“I’m wondering if it would be bad luck to break our pattern,” he whispered as his hand glided up and down her thigh in a light caress.
“Pattern?” she repeated stupidly, completely distracted by his evocative caresses. “What pattern…? Mmm…”
Her thoughts scattered and her voice trailed off as his hand skimmed between her legs then drifted over her lower abdomen. Sensual lightning streaked through her, sensitizing every inch of her skin.
“You’ve kissed me every day since we met,” he prompted huskily. “Except for today.” He angled his head and brushed his lips tenderly over her eyelids, her cheek and her chin.
“And you’re saying that you feel like you’ve missed out?” she asked breathlessly.
His mouth curved into a wry grin. “Definitely. When you become accustomed to tasty daily rations you start looking forward to them and you don’t want to do without.”
When he dropped a tempting kiss to her lips, the tension melted from her body instantly, replaced by a burning need that Bri was tired of fighting.
“Then by all means,” she purred. “We should finish the day off right. Here’s to fulfilling necessary daily rations….”
As if her arms possessed a will of their own, they glided over his broad shoulders then measured the muscled wall of his chest. She raked her fingers through his thick raven hair, held his head to hers and kissed him ravenously.
The eerie sound of ghost horses thundering across the canyon rim couldn’t override the erotic sensations streaming through her body. Just for tonight, came the voice of reckless need. She could appease her lusty desire for Hud and then the curious lure he held over her would cease to exist. She would discover what she had been avoiding these past few years when it came to intimacy between a man and woman.
Pleasure cascaded through her as Hud nudged her legs apart and settled over her. He pressed his hips against hers, assuring her that she aroused him and that he was as involved in their embrace as she was. She could feel his hard length against her abdomen and she arched instinctively against him. She couldn’t get close enough to satisfy the empty ache burning in the core of her being and hungry need blazed through her, hot and unrelenting.
The pressure of his lips became more intense and his hand moved familiarly over her breasts and belly. Her breath caught in her throat when his hand dipped beneath the waistband of her breeches and skimmed over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. Flames scorched her from inside out as his tongue darted into her mouth at the same moment that his finger glided into the molten heat between her legs. Bri cursed the layers of fabric between them, cursed the insane need that made her want to be naked with him, made her want to touch him as intimately as he was touching her…
Her thoughts scattered when a pack of wolves howled in the distance. The horses nickered and stamped uneasily. Hud stilled above her, his keen senses on alert. When he came to his knees then rocked back on his haunches, Bri sat up. She silently thanked the prowling lobos for jerking her back to reality before she cast common sense to the wind and answered the call of wild desire.
“I’ll stand guard—” she tried to volunteer.
“No,” he interrupted her quickly. “You’ve already shot a snake and a panther. Can’t let you have all the fun. I’ll stay by the horses until the pack moves on to easier prey.”
After he pulled on his boots, grabbed his rifle and walked away Bri collapsed on her pallet. She listened to the eerie sounds swirling around her and watched phosphoric ribbons of light drift along the escarpment.
For a fleeting moment, she had been wrapped in a warm cocoon, savoring wicked pleasures of the flesh. The thought of danger had been a million miles away. This is the dark side of desire at work, she mused as she snuggled up in her bedroll. It tosses all sorts of temptation at you while you’re weak and vulnerable. She wondered how long she’d be able to resist the tantalizing lure when each breathless moment she spent with Hud left her teetering on the brink of no return.
Bri contemplated her adolescent infatuation with Benji Dunlop. It was disconcerting to realize her crush on Benji was nothing like the feverish craving that fed upon itself when she was in Hud’s sinewy arms, reeling from the sizzling sensations provoked by his heated kisses and bold caresses.
“Go to sleep before you drive yourself crazy,” she chastised herself harshly.
Taking that sound advice she clamped her eyes shut and tried to discard the tempting picture of thick raven hair, whiskey-colored eyes and a ruggedly handsome face hovering above her. She could resist the wicked lure of lust for a couple of days, if she really tried. Soon she’d be surrounded by a camp full of Rangers. The welcomed companionship of her father would chase away these forbidden fantasies.
“Two more days,” she chanted as she drifted off to sleep.
Hud sat with his back against the rock wall. He cradled his rifle in his lap while he watched over the horses and kept an eye on Bri, who slept on the far side of the campfire.
Damn it, he’d let temptation take a fierce and mighty hold on him when he invited Bri to bed down beside him. He’d let down his guard tonight—again—and look what had happened. He’d savored the taste of Bri’s honeyed lips, caressed her lush body and touched her familiarly.
“You made another stupid mistake,” he castigated himself sharply. “When are you going to learn you can’t trust yourself with her?”
The imprint of her curvaceous body might as well have been branded on him because his flesh burned each place they’d touched. He remembered, vividly, how it felt to lie intimately upon her. He remembered her taste, her scent and the delicious heat of her desire burning his fingertip. He knew what it was like to want her almost beyond bearing. It was pure hell not giving in to his fierce need to bury himself inside her and feel her silky heat burning around him.
Hud blew out his breath, stretched out his legs and laid his head against the stone wall. What was that stupid comment he’d made about not breaking the habit of kissing her? He’d kissed her all right—and he’d practically gone up in flames, right on the spot. Damnation, he had to stop torturing himself like that or he’d drive himself loco! He could resist sweet, tormenting temptation, if he set his mind to it. He had to.
“Two more days,” he murmured.
He could control himself a little while longer and he’d deliver Bri to her father. Then he’d ride off to search for Joe Jarvis and Pete Spaulding. His crusade would take his mind off that indigo-eyed siren who kept blasting his noble intentions and willpower all to hell and left him aching with a need that intensified with each passing day.
“Eaton!”
Eaton Powell groaned miserably when he heard the shrill voice echoing down the hall of his lavish mansion in Austin. He’d arrived in town late the previous night, after riding on that dusty, uncomfortable stagecoach for hours on end. Then he’d boarded a train for the final leg of his journey. He’d celebrated his return to civilization with a warm and willing bit of fluff. Afterward he’d drunk himself to sleep and he hadn’t planned to rise and shine until afternoon. If then.
“Eaton! Get up this instant!”
The familiar voice played havoc with the rhythmic throbbing in his head. Grimacing, Eaton levered himself against the headboard and blinked owlishly.
Anna Roland Price flew into his suite like a furious witch—minus her broom. Attractive though she was with her blue-violet eyes and blond hair, she could cut you to the quick with her condescending stares. The derisive twist of her lips assured you that you could try but you could never be as important and powerful and well bred as an almighty Roland.
“How dare you!” Anna railed in a grating voice that raked over Eaton’s frazzled nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard.
He grabbed his head before it imploded then groaned sickly when his stomach pitched and rolled.
“You incompetent dolt! You allowed my daughter, your fiancée, to be abducted right out from under your nose.”
“It happened in the middle of the night,” he mumbled. “I wasn’t on hand. We had separate rooms, of course.”
She stormed over to the bed, jerked the pillow from beneath his aching head and pummeled him with it repeatedly.
“Then you had the gall to leave her in that godforsaken hellhole and you came home?” Her voice rose to an eardrum-splitting squawk that made Eaton want to howl in agony.
“There is no one of any consequence to oversee the search!”
“The Ranger on escort detail was there.” He grabbed the pillow from her fist and clamped it under his arm so she couldn’t hit him with it again.
Anna scoffed disdainfully. “Obviously the irresponsible hooligan whom Winston sent to accompany Gabrielle is as big an idiot as you are.” She fisted her hands on her hips and glowered hot pokers at him. “If you think for one minute that you are going to lounge in the lap of luxury while my daughter faces untold terror at the hands of some ruthless heathen in the wilderness, you are very much mistaken, Eaton.”
“Perhaps you should travel to Fort Griffin to oversee the search. I’m sure you’d be much better at it than everyone else,” he said snidely.
“Be that as it may, you are going back immediately.” Her arm shot toward the wardrobe closet. “Get dressed and get on board the afternoon train that heads north. You are going back to Fort Griffin. Do you hear me, Eaton?”
Who couldn’t? The walls of Jericho couldn’t hold up against the crazed woman.
“I’ve been in contact with the city marshal—” he began.
His voice became a yelp when Anna swooped down to jerk off the quilts, exposing his bare chest and under-drawers. When she grabbed his ear, pinched it painfully then dragged him from bed, Eaton came to his feet. It was that or risk having his right earlobe ripped off the side of his head.
“While you head north I will hire private detectives,” she insisted. “Nothing but the best. The Pinkertons, of course. Until they arrive you will be at Fort Griffin to keep me updated daily.”
“I’m sure your husband will mount a posse so—”
“So nothing!” she railed furiously. “If you expect Roland money to support your campaign for U.S. Senator then you will get off your duff and get on that train!”
Eaton stared at the pompous banshee for a long moment, trying to decide if he should arrange to have her abducted, too. It was an exceptionally pleasing thought.
Anna shook her bejeweled finger in his face. “I will give you one hour to prepare for your trip. If you aren’t packed and ready to board the train, I will let it be known that you are personally to blame for Gabrielle’s disappearance.”
He was but he’d cut out his tongue before he confided that to the raving banshee.
“Indeed, how do you expect to oversee the needs of the citizens of this state and this country if you can’t keep track of your fiancée?” She bared her teeth and snarled, “I promise you, Eaton, I will ruin your chances of being elected for anything if you don’t return to Fort Griffin immediately.”
She flashed him another hateful sneer. “If you don’t find my daughter you are finished. Do you understand me?”
“Completely.” He massaged his throbbing earlobe.
Flinging her nose in the air, she stamped out.
Eaton glared at her parting back and said, “I had the wrong woman kidnapped, Anna. I should have started with you.”