Two

Raven woke to the sound of a man’s deep, threatening voice.

“Where are my furs?”

She heard her father’s strangled reply.

“Gone. Gone.”

“Where’s the barter you got for them?” the harsh voice demanded.

“Gambled away,” her father rasped.

In the gray, predawn light she could just make out the hulking shadow crouched over her father’s body. The intruder was huge and hairy, a ferocious human beast. He held a Green River skinning knife slanted across her father’s throat.

She reached slowly, silently for her father’s Kentucky rifle.

“Don’t move!” the voice commanded.

Raven froze.

The hulking figure rose abruptly, bringing her father upright with his throat caught in one giant hand. “Who’s there?” he called.

“Raven,” she whispered.

“It’s my daughter,” Orrin said with the little air the mountain man’s fierce hold allowed down his throat. “She’s yours, if you’ll just let me go.”

Raven gasped as she realized the enormity of her father’s offer.

The beast also hissed in a breath of air.

“No, Father,” Raven said, struggling out from beneath the blankets she had been wrapped in and rising to her feet. There must be some other way to pay the menacing man for the furs her father had lost. She knew better than to plead with the beast. There was no mercy in the dark, haunted eyes that stared into hers.

Suddenly, her father was free. He coughed and spat, clearing his throat. “Figured you’d come hunting me,” Orrin croaked, rubbing his throat. “Didn’t think it would take this long, though.”

The beast turned his shaggy head toward her father. “You damn near killed me!” he snarled. “Saw double for two weeks. And that was a low thing to do, hiding my clothes. I had buckskins half made when I found the set you hid under the bed.”

Orrin grinned, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. “Worked though, didn’t it?” He reached out to touch the sleeve of Cale’s bearskin coat. “I surely hated to leave this behind, but I’ve got my scruples. Knew you’d need a coat.”

The beast growled. “Lucky for you my horse was still there.”

Orrin looked affronted. “I ain’t no horse thief!”

Stealing a man’s horse often condemned him to death, considering the long distances between water in the West. Thus, there was nothing lower than a horse thief, and he was killed when he was caught.

“Don’t think much of a body who’d steal after accepting a man’s hospitality,” the beast said.

Orrin shrugged. “Couldn’t help myself. Got a weakness for gambling, you know. Needed a poke and figured yours’d do.”

Raven noted the look of disbelief on the beast’s face.

“You lost them all?” he asked.

“Every one,” Orrin confirmed. “Took near three weeks to do it, though. Too bad you didn’t show up here sooner.”

Raven took advantage of the opportunity to light a lantern. She stirred the fire with a stick, and when she found live coals, added kindling to build up the fire.

“How ’bout some coffee?” Orrin said. “Find yourself a seat, and we can discuss the matter of my debt to you.”

Raven stiffened. So, her father had meant it when he offered her to the mountain man as though she were a pile of furs to be bartered. She kept her face turned away from the big man. She did not want to encourage his attention, and she still had hopes of escaping the trap her father had sprung on her.

The mountain man settled himself cross-legged on the ground beside her father with surprising grace. He kept his peace, listening as her father related how he had arrived early at the rendezvous site at Pierre’s Hole and found a score of free trappers as well as nearly a hundred men who had hired themselves out to the Rocky Mountain and American Fur Companies. Besides the trappers, there were numerous lodges of Nez Perce and Flathead Indians.

“Found plenty who’d play cards with me, I can tell you,” Orrin said. “Started out lucky. Almost doubled what I had.” His slightly bucktoothed grin flashed. “Or rather, almost doubled what you had. Then my luck turned.” He shrugged. “That’s the way of it.”

“That was a season’s work you gambled away,” the beast said. “I figured to make a couple thousand.”

Orrin whistled. “That’s a mighty lot, all right. But I’ve got something worth at least that much,” he said, eyeing Raven.

“If I’d wanted a woman, I could have bought one for a lot less than a season’s worth of furs,” the beast said.

Orrin’s eyes narrowed. “One that speaks English? One that can cook white folk’s food? One as pretty as my Raven?”

Raven felt her father’s finger under her chin, forcing her face up to be observed by the mountain man. She lifted her eyes, refusing to be cowed, and met the stranger’s gaze, then bit her lip to keep from gasping again.

His eyes had a hungry look. His nostrils were flared for the scent of her. His mouth, nearly hidden by a full beard, flattened to a thin line. Heavy lids hooded dark eyes in a way that did nothing to hide his naked desire. He wanted her.

Raven felt a terror she had experienced only once before, when a man had come upon her sleeping and nearly forced himself on her before she had managed to reach her knife and stab him. He had lived to embellish the tale of the Nez Perce bitch who had cut a man to pieces rather than give herself to him. Her fierce reputation had saved her from further unwanted advances at the past few rendezvous.

If her father gave her to the beast in payment of a debt, she would belong to him. She would be honor bound to obey him, to serve him in whatever he asked. And she had no doubt he would wish to couple with her. No doubt at all.

Only, she did not wish it. A surge of rebellious anger forced the words from her mouth before she could stop them. “I will work for you, as I work for my father, to repay his debt. But that is all I will do for you.”

There. It was said. It was her father’s problem if the beast would not accept what, and only what, she offered.

Cale couldn’t take his eyes off the girl called Raven. She was beautiful beyond words, her body slim beneath the beaded buckskin dress, her face a delicate oval framed by shiny black braids from which tendrils had escaped during sleep. Her eyes were almond shaped, dark and wary. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth wide, the lips full and very, very kissable. The mixture of white and Indian blood had resulted in skin a rosy peach color that looked so soft it begged to be touched.

He wasn’t the least bit pleased with the bargain Raven had offered. She had left out the one thing he truly wanted from her. His groin tightened at the thought of bedding her. He knew deep down it was a mistake to let the old man pawn the girl off on him in payment for the furs he had stolen, especially if he agreed to the girl’s terms. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to turn down the offer.

“I’ll take her,” he said abruptly.

“For three months,” Orrin qualified. “Or thereabouts. Until the first snowfall.”

Cale frowned. “Three months?”

“Or until the first snowfall,” Orrin repeated. “I couldn’t let her go for longer than that. I can’t manage without her during the trapping season, you see.”

Cale swallowed hard. Maybe Orrin was doing him a favor. If he had the girl around any longer than that, he was liable to start depending on her. Better she should go back to her father. “All right,” he agreed. “Three months, or until the first snowfall.”

“I will go with you,” Raven said in a quiet voice, “because my father owes a debt to you. But only with the understanding that you will not take what is not offered. Otherwise, I will fight you. To the death.”

Cale started to laugh at the ferocity of her challenge. The sound died in his throat. She was serious. Her eyes flashed with defiance, and her body was tense as she waited for his response.

Raven’s ultimatum certainly put a hitch in his plans for her. But Cale was quick to note that she had not said he could never bed her. She had said she would fight if he took what was not offered. Which meant that if he could win her trust, he could have her.

In days long past, Cale wouldn’t have questioned his ability to convince a woman she would find pleasure in his arms. But there was something about Raven that left him wondering. He smiled wolfishly. The challenge would give him something to do to help pass the time until winter. He would have her, he decided. Somehow, some way, he would have her.

“I won’t take what isn’t offered,” he said.

She nodded her acceptance, but the wariness didn’t leave her eyes as she handed Cale a tin cup of coffee.

“You’re welcome to camp here with us,” Orrin offered, “and get an early start home when daylight comes.”

“I need to buy supplies before I leave,” Cale said.

“Sure. Take your time. Raven isn’t going anywhere. We’ll be here waiting for you—”

“Raven comes with me,” Cale said. “You’ll understand if I don’t trust you to be here when I’ve finished my business.”

Orrin grinned. “Once burned, twice chary, eh? Raven will be ready to go when you are. Right, girl?”

Cale turned his head toward the young woman. She met his gaze without flinching.

“I will be ready.”