Holt's Gamble (17 page)

"Yeah," Holt answered over the downpour, leading his horse into the circle, "It's easy to miss someone on a night like this."

"You're tellin' me." Thorp blinked back the rain that splattered in his eyes as he scanned the gloomy sky. "Wilkerson's got the next shift. One more hour and I'll be snug and cozy next to my Susan." He shrugged back an involuntary shiver beneath his slicker. "But then," he added, nudging Holt with an elbow, "I don't reckon you'll be cold for long either, eh, Clay? That's a fine-lookin' bride you found yourself there. Fine-lookin'." Thorp's mouth twitched in a mischievous smile.

Holt stared back at him impassively, lost in his own thoughts.

"Yes sir," Daniel rambled on, trying to keep up his end of a one-way conversation, "a man needs a little comfort on a night like this. We're lucky men, Holt. Plain lucky."

"Yeah, lucky."
I'll be lucky if she shares the damn blankets with me tonight,
Holt thought glumly. A bone-rattling tremor raced through him as the damp chill seeped beneath Holt's wet clothing. His shoulder throbbed and all he could think of was getting dry and warm again. "See you later, Daniel," he said, and moved off before the other man could buttonhole him further.

He made his way to the wagon and unsaddled Taeva. He ground-staked the horse, gave him a ration of oats from his saddlebag and watered him. Passing Jacob's small tent, he carefully eased his tack into the front of the wagon along with the bundle of meat and covered them with a tarp Jacob had left for him.

Like a beacon, a dim light glowed from the interior of the wagon. Was she still awake, he wondered, as he slogged across the muddy ground to the back of the wagon. It baffled him to think she might have waited up for him. Biting back that small seed of hope, he clenched his jaw and pulled aside the canvas cover.

What he saw there made him catch his breath in wonder. Kierin lay against the pile of grain sacks, her hair spread out upon them like an auburn cloud. She was fully dressed... and asleep. One slender hand, relaxed with slumber, lay curled close to her face and seemed to beckon him in. Her expression, guileless and unguarded in sleep, was free of the strain he'd seen there for the past days. He released a shaky breath as the rain continued to fall, but he found he was unable to move—forward, backward—he stood rooted to the spot. God in heaven but she was beautiful.

"Wha—?" Kierin sat bolt upright, awakened by something she couldn't identify. Her eyes were clouded by sleep and she blinked to clear them.

The figure of a man just outside the wagon stood out in shadowed relief against the storm. Silhouetted in the darkness, rain spilling from the brim of his hat, she knew that he'd come back. "Clay."

He cleared his throat and she felt the weight of his step on the wagon. "Yeah. It's me."

Relief swept through her like a gust of warm wind.
Thank God,
she wanted to cry.
I was so worried something had happened to you.
But as he moved toward the light, his clouded expression forced those words back in her throat. She swept her hair back from her eyes. "Are you all right?"

Holt didn't answer as he climbed into the wagon and peeled off his wet rain slicker and hat. His clothes were, indeed, soaked through, and another involuntary shiver rattled through him.

"You must be half-frozen." Kierin reached for a dry blanket.

"I am," he agreed, blowing into his stiff hands. "You think you could scare up a few dry clothes for me to change into while I get out of these?"

"Oh—of course." Her heart did a little dance in her throat. She turned her back on him and dug through his small trunk of clothes. When she turned around with his things, he had already peeled his wet buckskin shirt over his head and was pressing a hand to his tender shoulder. He stopped self-consciously when he found her watching him.

She lowered the bundle deliberately to her lap. "If you're going to pretend you didn't hurt yourself today, you needn't bother."

He stared at her for a long moment. "No?"

She shook her head.

"I guess there wouldn't be much point, would there?" He squeezed his eyes shut and reached up again to his shoulder, kneading the cramping muscles. "You're right. It hurts like hell."

"You'd better get out of those wet things," she told him. "I'll take a look at it." Turning her back on him while he undressed, Kierin swallowed hard and pulled her blanket more tightly around her. A thousand thoughts flitted through her mind, but none told her how to approach the taciturn man standing behind her. Almost overwhelming was her need to resolve the bad feelings between them. But how?

She rummaged through Jacob's medicinal bag for something to soothe his shoulder. Her search produced a bottle of witch hazel. The strong-smelling stuff served double-duty as both astringent and liniment. It would do.

Behind her, she heard his soft curse as he struggled out of the sodden buckskins and dropped them to the floor. Kierin resisted the ridiculous urge to turn around and admire him. She didn't have to look to recall the powerful contours of his body, his broad shoulders, the whip cord strength in his arms, even the feel of the dark silky hair on his chest.

She remembered it all. Unbidden came the memory of holding him through that long night when he'd been so ill. Entwined in his arms, the struggle she'd faced with him had been so simple: life or death, survival or defeat. There was no middle ground in that battle just as there seemed to be nothing but this yawning distance between them now.

Now she had to deal with him as a man. A complex, living, breathing man. A man she'd never be able to trust.

She heard his weary sigh as he sank down onto the pallet and she turned around. He'd pulled on a dry pair of denim pants. A blanket hung loosely around his shoulders and he leaned wearily against a crate. The hair on his chest, still damp from the rain, glistened like jet in the lamp glow.

Kierin swallowed back the lump that formed in her throat as she knelt beside him. Gently, she pushed aside the blanket that covered his injured shoulder. His wound had healed well, despite the punishment he'd given it. Only a slight discoloration surrounded the jagged reddish scar now. But the newly mended muscles in his shoulder jumped with fatigue.

"It's late," he said. "Why aren't you in bed, asleep?"

Kierin's eyes met his. "I
was
asleep."

His gaze raked slowly down the length of her rumpled gown. "You're still dressed."

It was no use denying the obvious. "I fell asleep waiting for you to get back," she admitted.

He frowned at her with something akin to disbelief.

She sat back on her heels and shook her head. "You were gone longer than anyone expected. Do you really find it so hard to imagine that I'd be worried about you, alone out there in this...?" She gestured at the clatter of the pounding rain outside.

Hell yes,
he wanted to say, but couldn't. "There was no need for you to worry," he told her evenly. "I asked Jacob to tell you where I was going. Didn't he?"

"He told me. But I wish
you
had."

Holt ran a hand tiredly across the stubble on his cheeks. "To be honest, I didn't think it would matter to you one way or the other."

Kierin sighed. "Do you really believe that?"

His eyes darkened. "I don't know," he answered slowly. "Are you trying to tell me otherwise?"

"I—" Kierin looked down at her hands, unable to meet his gaze. "Well... yes."

Holt's lips parted in surprise as he watched her.
I'll be damned,
he thought, straightening slightly. "I'm... glad to hear that."

As her eyes met his again, his gaze traced a path down her face to her full lower lip. A warning tremor of desire tore through him like a low rumble of thunder.

Kierin's gaze skittered away from him and then back as she screwed up her courage. "I don't want us to go on the way we have the past few days," she told him without preamble. "We have a long trip ahead of us. I've been stubborn and willful and—"

"No—" he interrupted. "The truth is that I behaved badly the other day and whatever's gone on between us is more my fault than yours." He reached out and touched her fingertips.

A hot electric shock traveled up her arm at his touch but she allowed it. It was as much of an apology as she guessed she'd ever get from him and more than she'd expected. As she searched for something to say in return, the rain beat a tattoo on the canvas roof, insulating them and giving her the sense that they were completely alone. "Mr. Holt—"

"Clay. You called me Clay before."

"I did?"

He nodded slowly. "When I came in." His steely blue eyes searched hers. "I can't remember you calling me that before."

"Oh. I..." His gaze seemed to caress her face and she nearly forgot to breathe.

"I liked it."

She swallowed, eyes wide. His closeness made her feel light-headed and off balance.

He reached up with one hand and brushed her cheek gently with the backs of his fingers. "Look, I know I've given you reason to be afraid of me, Kierin, but I don't want that between us."

Afraid? A moment ago she might have attributed the churning sensation within her to fear. Now she hesitated, mesmerized by his eyes, held motionless by his voice. He reminded her of a hunting animal and she, the stalked prey. His gaze moved from her eyes down to her mouth and back up again. God help her, he was giving her a way out. Waiting for her to tell him no. But she didn't. She couldn't.

His fingers curled into the fine, coppery hair at the nape of her neck and he drew her to him. His mouth covered hers gently.

Tasting. Sipping.

His lips slanted across hers, first one way, then the other. With maddening deliberateness, his tongue traced the inside edge of her lower lip.

Open to me Kierin,
his mouth invited.
Let me taste all of you.

His kiss awakened a yearning deeper than any she'd known and stronger than her will to fight against it. Lips parted, she leaned into him. He cupped her face with his other hand and pulled her closer still, plundering her trembling mouth.

His kiss tasted of rain. His lips, still cool with the night's chill, warmed as they took possession of hers. She wanted this—needed it as much as the thirsty grasses of the prairie did the storm raging outside. She'd even dreamed of it in the nights since he kissed her by the river. Instinctively, she flattened her hands against him and felt the taut muscles of his abdomen quiver and his heart thud in the same erratic rhythm as her own. His hand slid to the small of her back, and he pulled her across his chest, drawing her fully against him.

His hips tilted up reflexively against hers and she felt the undeniable evidence of his passion, hard and warm between them. Rational thought returned to her with a jolt.

"Oh, God—stop," she moaned, tearing herself abruptly from his arms. He made a noise deep in his throat and released her without argument as if he'd half expected her to leap away from him that way.

Kierin pressed the back of her hand to her lips. "Oh, God," she whispered again, knowing that kiss had been as much her fault as his. What must he think of her now? Maybe she
was
like the others at Talbot's. Maybe that's what she'd become.

He raked a hand through his damp hair.
It's better this way,
he thought. He knew from the look on her face that their kiss had affected her as much as it had him. He took a deep steadying breath and leaned against the crate—head tilted back, eyes slammed shut. What had flared between them just now crossed dangerously beyond the realm of simple lust and into a place he wasn't ready to explore again. He had no intention of allowing himself to fall in love with another woman only to risk losing her. And something told him there would be no going back for him with a woman like Kierin—no matter who or what she'd been before.

Kierin scooted away from him to the other side of the narrow wagon, taking small comfort in that space. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but the steady thrum of rain was gentler now.

"Tell me something," she asked in a voice that betrayed her fear, "Why did you take me in that game? Was it for
this?"
She was afraid of his answer but she had to know.

"No."

"Then why?"

"I don't know." He paused, as if mulling over his own confusion, and rubbed a hand across the dark stubble on his cheeks again. "I sure as hell didn't intend to drag you into any of this."

She looked at him incredulously. "Just what
did
you intend?"

Holt returned her look. "As you might recall, Talbot didn't leave us a lot of time to make any plans." Frustrated, he plucked out a long piece of straw that had worked its way out of the mattress beneath him. "If things had been different... I probably would have put you on the first stage out of there. St. Louis, maybe."

"But what about my contract? What about the money you risked?"

"What about it? I won. Your contract never entered into it," he told her matter-of-factly, clamping the straw between his teeth. "I never meant to hold you to those papers, Kierin, and if you'd let me get a word in edgewise that night by the river, I would have told you that."

Her stunning sense of freedom was tempered only by an inexplicable pang of disappointment. "And once you'd unchained me, what then?" she asked. "Just send me off without a thought as to where I would go, or how I would get by?"