McCrory's Lady (13 page)

      
Colin rode between a big boulder and a sharp wall of rock about ten feet high, enough to provide some minimal shelter for them and Sand. The stallion stood obediently, head down, avoiding the worst of the storm's onslaught. Colin slid from the saddle and lifted her down, then pulled her with him to lie on the ground at the base of the stone facing.

      
He covered her body with his and used his wide brimmed hat as a partial shield, holding it over their faces. Maggie lay against him, feeling the weight of his big lean frame pressing against hers, feeling the unyielding rock at her back. Colin's body was almost as hard as the ground, yet it felt warm and alive as death howled all around them. She could hear the thudding of his heartbeat and took comfort in its steady rhythm. The whiskers on his jaw rasped softly against her cheek, reminding her of his raw male vitality. The old revulsion, so well remembered since Whalen, did not come. Instead, an insidious warmth, a sense of belonging, of being sheltered and cherished by this harsh, enigmatic stranger filled her with inexplicable bittersweet longing…

      
For the first time, Maggie Worthington admitted to herself why she had proposed her bold bargain to Colin McCrory. And it had nothing to do with escaping from Sonora or regaining respectability.

Chapter Six

      
Colin could feel the curve of her hip, the pillowing softness of her generous breasts, and he knew he was rapidly becoming as randy as a green boy, right in the middle of a blinding sandstorm! Maggie's lush body and quick mind had attracted him from their first encounter.
Small wonder
, he thought wryly. He had been without Mariah's charms for some weeks now. The response was natural enough. He simply needed a woman, and an attractive one lay beneath him, pressed intimately against his body.

      
Yet Mariah Whittaker's prim, cool beauty faded and became distorted in the storm-laden air. All his mind's eye could picture were the porcelain skin and wide China blue eyes of his Sassenach. When had he begun to think of Maggie as his? She was a whore—any man's woman—for a price. Even as he silently reiterated the accusation, Colin knew it was neither fair nor true.

      
He had known his share of whores in his checkered career, and Maggie Worthington was unlike any of them. In fact, she was unlike any woman he had ever met. What had sent a woman of obvious refinement and good breeding down the road to ruin? And, after carving out a life of comfort and financial independence for herself, what had possessed her to make her outrageous proposal to him?

      
Best if I never know.

      
Feeling the jab of a stone, Maggie shifted her weight slightly and her hip rubbed across his. Their legs were entwined and one of hers had ridden up between his thighs. She could feel the unmistakable pressure of his erection against her belly and thought he muttered a low oath, although it was impossible to hear distinctly over the howl of the storm. Then, he placed his mouth directly over her ear and yelled so she could understand him.

      
“I'm going to get a blanket off the saddle roll. Hold this over your face so you can breathe!” He thrust his hat at her, covering her face with it, then stood up and moved away from her.

      
Maggie was assailed by a sense of loss that far transcended the stinging sand buffeting her body with every gust of wind. In a moment he was back, rolling them together under the protection of the blanket. The scorching abrasion abated as he once again protected her from the onslaught of the elements with his body. The blanket enabled them to breathe much more freely, filtering out the dust and sand more effectively than the meager protection of his hat.

      
Colin could feel the warmth of her breath on his neck and imagined how soft her lips would be pressed to his skin. The brief respite of moving away from her had done little to quell his rebellious body. Now, cocooned in the blanket with her, he once again felt the insistent throbbing of desire, as fierce and hot as the desert wind.

      
Trying to detour his mind from the immediate problem, he considered what to do when they reached Tucson. Maggie and Eden had become inseparable. He feared his daughter might well refuse to return home without her new friend. He could offer Maggie the marriage she had originally bargained for, but the idea galled his pride. Anyway, she would probably say no with the same cool contempt she had employed last time:
Consider our bargain finished. You welshed. I accept it.
He
had
welshed and it bothered him.

      
The sand began to pile up around them. Maggie found her fingers clutching at Colin's back, her nails digging in as she burrowed against him, hungry for his solid, reassuring presence. His strength and vitality were life, while all around them the threat of death howled in the wind.

      
Colin responded to the brittle desperation that he felt in her body as she pressed closer to him. He lifted her chin with one hand and brought his mouth down over hers, covering it as he covered her body. Sand gritted between their teeth and the kiss tasted of dust. And still it was sweet, and her lips were soft, yielding.

      
We may die out here, buried alive.
Maggie opened for his invading tongue, relishing the hot male insistence of it, the life force surrounded by desolation, yet defying it. His mouth ground over hers as his tongue thrust deep, twining with hers. She could feel the pads of his fingers massaging her scalp as he cradled her head in his hand. Her own lips moved greedily over his, melding with them, returning his kiss with a wild abandon she had never felt before.

      
As suddenly as it had blown up, the wind died. Gradually, they became aware of the eerie silence, broken abruptly when Colin's big stallion stamped his foot and snorted restlessly. Colin pulled away from her, breaking off the fierce kiss and rolling free of the blanket, now covered with a thick layer of sand and debris. Maggie turned her head away, refusing to look him in the eye and see the harsh mockery she knew would be there. She had just behaved like the very doxy he believed her to be. Busy berating herself for a fool, she was surprised when he reached out his hand and pulled her gently to a sitting position. A spasm of coughing caught her as she tried to take a deep, calming breath.

      
“I'll fetch the canteen,” he said, stepping over to unfasten it from his saddle.

      
She took the proffered drink gratefully. He watched her swallow and his eyes followed the muscles contracting down her slender throat with its soft sun-kissed skin. Now, he had touched and tasted that skin, and he wanted more.

      
“Careful, don't drink too much or you'll get stomach cramps,” he warned.

      
His voice was oddly neutral-sounding, as if he, too, wanted to forget the insanity that had just passed between them. Steeling herself, she met his eyes. “I owe you my life, Colin,” she said simply.

      
“I owe you Eden's, and she still needs you,” he replied, his voice tight.

      
“So now we're even.” He made no comment. She looked down at her ruined clothes and tangled hair. “I feel as if the sand is imbedded in every pore of my skin,” she said, shaking out her blouse and brushing her riding skirt.

      
“If we make up for this lost time, we should reach a good-sized spring by nightfall. You and Eden can enjoy a bath.”

      
She studied his profile as he recapped the canteen and hung it on the saddle. “You seem to know a lot about this trail for a man who's only traveled it once before.”

      
A shuttered look came over his face as he pulled her to her feet. “I've ridden into Sonora before. A long time ago,” he added with harsh finality in his voice, indicating the subject was closed.

      
Just then Wolf's greeting echoed from across the next rise. “You both all right?”

      
“Yes. What about Eden?” Colin yelled back.

      
“She's fine. So's everyone else. We lost one horse—not one of your racers. We were damn lucky.”

      
Nodding in agreement, Colin shook out the blanket and rolled it up, then tied it behind his saddle and mounted up before pulling Maggie up in front of him. They rejoined Wolf without speaking another word to each other.

      
True to his word, Colin led the small caravan to a veritable oasis in the desert. Tall oak trees clustered around the spot where the underground spring burst forth from a jagged crevice in the earth and trickled down to form a series of small secluded pools. The last and largest of them was a distance from the first two, hidden by the rocky landscape and sheltered by chaparral and paloverde.

      
“It's absolutely beautiful!” Eden exclaimed.

      
“So green and pristine—as if this afternoon's sandstorm never touched it,” Maggie said, unable to forget the storm or what had happened during it.

      
They set to unpacking the horses and led them to water, then made camp. Wood was abundant and easily gathered. Soon, Fulhensio had a fire set against the night chill that would come with sundown. Colin and Wolf scouted the area for any recent sign of Apache. Price was assigned sentry duty until their return.

      
Eden and Maggie set out for the farthest pool with fresh clothes, toiletries and towels, eager to bathe days of travel grime from their hair and skin.

      
As they stripped and waded into the heavenly cool of the water, Maggie sighed in bliss, then lay back in the water for a moment with her eyes closed until Eden's next words caused them to pop open.

      
“I've been watching you and Father all afternoon. Ever since the two of you disappeared during the storm, you've both been acting edgier than usual around each other.”

      
Maggie tried to shrug beneath Eden's whiskey gold gaze.
Her father's eyes, damn him.

      
“Did something happen between you?” A sly smile curved her lips.

      
“In the middle of a sandstorm—in the desert?” Maggie scoffed.

      
“Something happened,” Eden replied stubbornly. Then, seeing that Maggie was not going to reveal what, she changed the subject—slightly. “What are you going to do when we reach Tucson?”

      
“Oh, I don't know. I could get a stage to Yuma and then up to San Francisco,” Maggie said vaguely, sudsing her body with perfumed soap.

      
“You don't want to leave us, do you? I don't want you to—and even though he won't admit it yet, neither does my Father.”

      
“Your father and I have only you in common, Eden. Much as I love you, that isn't the way to begin a relationship with him.”

      
“Then why did you ask him to marry you in the first place?” Eden asked with relentless logic as she worked shampoo through her hair.

      
“That was a mistake.”

      
The ragged tone of Maggie's voice spoke volumes to Eden. “He's being a fool, but he'll come around. Give him time... Maggie, I don't just want you to stay with us for myself—as an ally when I tell my father about Lazlo.”

      
“I know, Eden,” Maggie replied.

      
While the two women talked below in the water, above, hidden in the rocks, Beau Price watched them. A leering grin crossed his beefy red face as he examined their ample charms. The redhead was lushly curved, but there was an air of self-sufficiency about her that made him uneasy. The blonde appealed more—young, pale and delicate, but above all, vulnerable. He rubbed his crotch and thought of plunging between those smooth, slender white thighs.

      
His erotic reverie was taken up short when the icy edge of a knife blade grazed his throat. “Make a sound and I'll cut your throat, Price,” Wolf whispered as he backed the other man down the pathway, out of sight of the women, who were dressing now, completely unaware of the invasion of their privacy.

      
“You sneaked up quiet as an Injun,” Price said, rubbing his throat and eyeing Blake nervously. “Hell, I didn't do nothin'. There's no harm in lookin'.”

      
“No harm in spying on Colin McCrory's daughter in her bath?” Wolf said in a deadly voice.

      
Price gave a low, ugly laugh as the surprise of Wolf's actions wore off. “Why hell, Blake, they're both damaged goods. McCrory's girl ain't no different than that fancy house madam.”

      
“You keep your filthy mouth off of Miss McCrory, Price.”

      
Price's yellow eyes narrowed and he spat out of the side of his mouth. “Well, well, the breed's got the hots for the little blonde hisself. I reckon you're good enough fer her, too—now that all Lazlo's men used her.”

      
Blake swung a fast, hard punch that connected full with Price's midsection, knocking the breath from his lungs with a giant whoosh. He doubled over, then twisted away, gulping air into his lungs as he grabbed his gun, but Wolf smashed Price's hand against the boulder behind him until he dropped the weapon.

      
With a curse, Price swung on Blake; but the blow only grazed the slimmer, younger man. Wolf landed a sharp jab to Price's jaw, followed by another to his stomach. Then Price, who had a good thirty pounds on Blake, shook his head like an enraged grizzly and waded forward, trapping his faster, more skilled opponent between the rocks. When Price moved in with big meaty fists raised, Wolf ducked, and the blow meant to take off the top of his head cracked against the rock wall behind him.