Miracle Jones (12 page)

But why had she kept him here all this time?

Harrison’s eyes narrowed.
How long had he been here?

With a groan of anguish he suddenly remembered his wedding.
He was supposed to have been wed by now, wasn’t he?
Surely he’d been here more than one night.
He could recall hazy memories of night fires and daylight glinting off the lake’s surface.
It was a good bet he’d missed his own wedding.
His gut twisted with remorse for the misery and humiliation he’d inadvertently caused Kelsey.

He was reflecting on what that would mean for Danner-Garrett relations (Jace would never get over this one!) when he heard footsteps crunching on the dried grass of the trail.
Harrison fixed his gaze expectantly on the spot where Miracle would undoubtedly appear.
His curiosity about this woman was enormous.

As Harrison waited, he remembered a hazy fragment of a dream.
A woman’s lush body moving beneath his.
The image was so powerful that his member hardened in response.
God dammit!
What was wrong with him?
Jesse was the Danner who suffered from uncontrollable lust.

He closed his eyes tightly, willing the vision away, his hands fisted at his sides, disgusted with himself.

Miracle’s tread stopped, and Harrison opened his eyes.
She was at the edge of the clearing, staring at him through a pair of the deepest, bluest, most brilliant eyes he’d ever seen.
Her expression was sober and tense.
In her arms was a basket filled with tins and bottles and what looked to be clothes.
Her shirtwaist had obviously once been pink, but it was stained with dirt and dust, and her buckskin skirt looked worn and beaten.
Her face and skin were clean and soft, however, so Harrison guessed her ragged clothes owed more to the events of the past few days than any lacking on her part.

There was a toughness about her, a strength in her arms and in the determined lift of her chin.
If her disposition were as severe as her expression, he decided she would make someone a horrible, mean-tempered wife.
But even so, there was a vulnerability about her mouth that spoke of deeper feelings, of sensitivity.

Her hair was thick, raven black, and hung straight to her waist.
It shone with the richness of good health.
He suddenly longed to bury his face in those night-dark tresses and was surprised by the reaction.
He could almost feel their silken curtain and smell their clean scent, and he could see that black mane wet, with water pouring from it over long limbs and soft, high breasts.

Holy Mother Mary.
What was he thinking of?

All this he absorbed in a matter of seconds.
The little savage was regarding him with just as much interest, he realized, though the frown that drew her thin black brows together offered little hope for her opinion.

What Harrison was unaware of was that Miracle was shocked down to the tips of her toes.
She’d seen him at night, under the secret shadows of evening.
In the daytime he’d always been asleep.
He’d seemed safe somehow.
Manageable.
But now that impression was swept away with the swiftness of a mountain gale.
This was no invalid.
This was a potent, strong-jawed male.
And his eyes were green, a rich brilliant, knowing emerald that seemed to look right through her.
For some reason that shocked her more than anything else.
She expected them to be dark, like the shadows of the night which had deepened them.

There was humor in his face; she’d seen the tiny crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.
But there was also sheer strength and an animal vitality that Miracle had heretofore been unconscious of.
The look on his face was a reflection of her own, though she did not know it.
Those green eyes were slitted and wary and fierce.
His nostrils were flared and his lips tight.
A pulse beat rhythmically in his throat.

Oh, Lord,
Miracle thought, dry-mouthed.
He will never let me escape justice!

“Miracle Jones?” he asked in a deceptively light tone.

She nodded jerkily.
His voice scraped her nerves.
Her face heated in embarrassment.
She prayed he didn’t remember what they’d shared.

He eased his left shoulder, grimacing.
“I suppose I should thank you for the poultice strapped to my back.
What is it?”

“Marshmallow root.”

“And what is it supposed to do?” he asked in a tone that suggested he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Miracle’s scattered wits reasserted themselves.
It was one thing to accuse her of trying to stab him; she could not deny the charge.
But it was quite another to malign her skills as a medicine woman.
“Bring down the fever.
Take away the poisons.
Make certain you don’t die.”

“Are you an Indian?” he asked curiously.
“You don’t talk like an Indian.”

“I’m half Chinook.
I was raised by whites.”

“But you’re a shaman?”

Miracle’s blush deepened.
No, she was not the medicine woman of her tribe, although when it suited his purposes Uncle Horace claimed her to be the best of a line of shamans that stretched through Chinook ancestry from the creation of the universe until present day.
In truth, Miracle had learned what she knew of fruits, herbs, and medicine from Uncle Horace and from a basic interest in such things.

“No,” she said.

Harrison abandoned this line of inquiry, seeing it would be like drawing blood from a turnip.
“So why are we here?” he asked, his gaze encompassing the camp.
“Why aren’t we in Rock Springs?”

“You were too weak to move,” she answered quickly, showing a first sign of emotion.
It was fear, Harrison decided.

“From my stab wound,” he prompted.

“I didn’t know you were trying to rescue me,” Miracle answered testily.
“I’ve said so before.”

“Have you?
Sorry.
I don’t remember.”

His sarcasm scored a direct hit.
She glanced away, her lips tightening, her long lashes sweeping her cheek in an utterly feminine, incredibly beautiful fan-shaped flutter.

“You were sick,” she stated flatly.
“I was afraid you would die.”

He felt a stirring of pity for her in spite of himself, and he was furious at himself for caring at all.
Your own fault,
his conscience mocked him.
You had to be a hero.
Had to save her.

“I need to get back to Rock Springs,” he said heavily.

“Oh, no!” Instantly she flew to his side, shaking her head violently.
“You can’t.
Not yet, anyway.
Your wound is still healing.
Don’t undo the good that’s already been done.”

This close, her eyes were like twin azure gems.
Harrison could only stare at her.
“How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

“Three days!” He groaned, leaning his forehead against the bole of the tree and closing his eyes.
There would be hell to pay with Jace Garrett.
He couldn’t even bear to think about Kelsey.

“What is it?” she asked, alarmed, touching her hand to his face.

Instantly Harrison opened his eyes.
The contact of her skin against his was enough to make him jump out of his flesh.
“I’m fine,” he muttered, his voice harsher than normal.
“Just – hungry.”

Her face relaxed for the first time.
“I’ll get you something to eat.”

When she moved away he caught a quick glimpse of a shapely calf beneath her long skirts.
Harrison, who had never suffered from lack of female companionship, was amazed and a little troubled by the stirring of desire her every movement seemed to elicit.
What in the devil was wrong with him?
Just because he’d been practicing self-imposed celibacy as a sort of tribute to his soon-to-be wife, Kelsey, didn’t mean he had to act like a randy schoolboy now that a few extra days had passed.
Good Lord, it hadn’t been that long, and he certainly wasn’t interested in a woman who was as handy with a knife as Miracle Jones obviously was.
It made him shake with fear to think what parts she might hack away at were she to be really furious with him!

No, there was no question of becoming involved with the little savage.
It was far too dangerous to his health.
Besides, he had a bride waiting in Rock Springs.
Let his younger brother, Jesse, who’d been missing these past ten years, live the life of a renegade and handle the Miracle Joneses of this world.
He, Harrison Danner, was not interested.

His thoughts touched on Isabella.
He hadn’t thought about her in years, but she seemed to be in the forefront of his mind now.
His mouth twisted.
And no wonder.
She was the last woman to incite such reckless lust in him.
He hadn’t believed he was still susceptible to that kind of adolescent desire.
Now that he knew he was, he wondered why he couldn’t feel that way about Kelsey.
She certainly was luscious enough.
But, God help them, she seemed as much of a sister to him as Lexie was.
He dreaded facing her and the prospect of their wedding.

“Blasted coward!” he muttered.

“Did you say something?” Miracle asked, glancing up from the soup she was pouring into a pan above the fire pit.
Tiny orange flames were pulsing around dried grass and bits of wood, reaching for the heavier broken limbs Miracle had crisscrossed over the ashes.

“No.”

Her gaze met his frankly, and Harrison thought he saw amusement tucked in the corners of her eyes.
She stared harder, but the impression disappeared as Miracle returned to her work, her concentration deep, her brow furrowed.

Did she have the wit and insight to understand his frustration?
Most of the women he’d met were too shallow, vain, or just plain disinterested to actually challenge his intellect.
Apart from his mother, his sister, and his bride-to-be, he’d never seen the slightest spark of intelligence from any of the women of his acquaintance.
Not even Isabella, who’d mastered the art of lying and cheating but never intellectual stimulation.
Could this wild half-breed of the quick tongue and even quicker blade actually possess a brain to match?

Impossible.
Yet…

Harrison shook his head and sank down onto the blanket.
He would reserve judgment.
After all, she
had
saved his life, once she’d given up the idea of taking it.

¤   ¤   ¤

Miracle was amused by her patient’s grumbling dissatisfaction.
He wasn’t nearly so fierce as she’d first imagined, she told herself with relief.
She felt certain that given enough time and persuasion, she could win over his trust enough to make him see there was no reason to call in the sheriff.

She stirred the soup and poured it into chipped ceramic cups.
She had some dried venison, too, and as she handed Harrison the cup, she asked him if he would like some of the meat as well.

“All right.” He nodded warily, watching her.
“Thank you.”

Miracle had to trek back to the wagon for the venison.
The horses watched her disinterestedly.
She’d tied them to a nearby tree, and they’d managed to wind themselves around so tightly they couldn’t reach the dried grasses which sprouted in straggly clumps between the firs and cedars.

“I don’t know why I bother to even tie you,” she scolded them.
“You’re too lazy and stupid to run away.”

She made certain they were unwound and able to reach the grasses, then she searched through the wagon for dried meat.
In the course of taking care of Harrison she’d managed to clean up the mess of broken glass and tossed-about tinware.
Now the wagon seemed like home again.

The sight of Uncle Horace’s wide-brimmed felt hat, the one with the hole in it which he liked to swear had been marked by the arrow Miracle’s “wild brother,” Blue, had shot at him when he’d stolen Miracle away from the “savage and vicious tribe of renegade Chinooks,” made Miracle’s throat tighten.
Of course, the Chinooks were peace-loving and interested in trade rather than war, but Uncle Horace’s tale never ceased to thrill the children he met along his travels.
Miracle’s existence gave his story credence, adding to the children’s delight and fear.
Though in the past Miracle had sometimes felt embarrassed by Uncle Horace’s unabashed yarn spinning, now she fervently wished she could hear one more wild, wicked tale.