Reilly's Woman (7 page)

"I suppose I should clean the dishes," she sighed.

"Might as well," Reilly agreed. "We might have to use them tonight." His comment drew her attention to the sky, empty of any search plane. "Sand will work better than water to clean."

Drawing her gaze away from the sky, Leah picked up the pan and poured in a small handful of sand. When it was scoured clean she rinsed away the grit with a little water and started on the shallow bowls. Reilly picked up the canteen and emptied it into the pan.

"Why did you do that?" she frowned.

"I'm going to refill the canteen from the basin. While I'm gone I want you to have water on hand to pour on the fire in case you see a search plane," he answered.

"But it will put the fire out," Leah protested.

"It will also make a lot of smoke which with luck the pilot would see and come to investigate," Reilly pointed out.

"I see." Dimples edged into her cheeks. "The old Indian smoke trick."

"Right," he winked, and started walking toward the slope.

She scoured the two bowls clean, rinsing them with a handful of water from the pot and wiping them dry with a tissue. With that done, she checked the clothes she had draped over the bushes and found that they were dry. She folded hers up and put them in her suitcase. Reilly's she stacked neatly on top of his suitcase. With only the partial use of her left hand, the task had taken some time, yet still Reilly hadn't returned. The sun was making its fiery presence in the sky felt. Leah added some more wood to the fire and sat down away from the blaze to wait.

Finally she saw him on the ledge above. He started down the fairly steep slope with the canteen in one hand and a four-foot-long board in the other.

"I wondered what was taking you so long," Leah called when he was half way down. "You made a sidetrip for more firewood."

At the base of the slope, Reilly made his reply. "No, I'm not going to use this board for firewood." He set the canteen beside the box of packaged food. "I'm going to try and split it in two and make lean-to poles out of it. It's going to get hotter and we'll need to get out of the sun."

After splitting the board down the middle with the pocket-knife as his wedge, he whittled each end to a point. The stiff, blanket-like sheet they had used last night had grommets in each corner. The stakes supported two of the blanket's corners and Reilly weighted the other two to the ground with rocks.

"A strong wind would probably blow it down, but it keeps out the sun," he declared, then bent down to sit inside his lean-to and waved Leah to join him.

She moved eagerly to its shade, revelling in the coolness after the burning rays of the sun. Reilly picked up one of the sticks from the firewood pile and began whittling on it with his knife.

"What are you making now?" she asked curiously.

"I thought I'd try my hand at carving a spoon."

Lying on her back with her arm as a pillow, she watched him shaving away the outer layer of wood with his knife. The steady rhythm of the slashing blade was slightly hypnotic. Soon she found her eyelids growing heavy.

"Why don't you take a siesta?"
Reilly suggested when she tried to blink away the tiredness. "I'll keep a watch for any search planes."

"I think I will." She stopped fighting the drowsiness and closed her eyes.

 

 

Chapter Four

 

LEAH SLEPT THROUGH the heat of the afternoon. The same rhythmic sound that lulled her to sleep was the first one she heard when she wakened. Reilly was sitting in the long shadow of the lean-to, whittling on a stick that now bore considerable resemblance to a wooden spoon.

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she started to push herself into a sitting position. Unconsciously she used both arms as a lever and gasped sharply at the pain that stabbed like a burning knife in her left arm. Quickly she
switched all her weight to her right arm.

"That was stupid," she muttered.

"Is your arm bothering you a lot?" Reilly's green eyes narrowed with piercing scrutiny.

"Only when I do something like that." She sat upright, cradling her left arm in her lap as the shooting pain began to recede. Her mouth felt scratchy and dry as if coated with wool. A frown marred her forehead as she glanced around the circle. "I need a drink. Where's the canteen?"

"In the shade behind you."

Leah had to shift slightly to reach it. Uncapping it, she took a long swallow. The water was warm but deliciously wet. The funny taste left her mouth.

"How are you getting on with the spoon?" At her question, Reilly's knife stopped its slashing as he held it up for her to see. "It looks like a spoon.
"
The knife resumed its work. A fly buzzed noisily about her head, pulling Leah's gaze to the empty sky. "There hasn't been any sign of a search plane?"

"No." He didn't elaborate. After several minutes of silence, he set the spoon-shaped piece of wood on the ground, folded back the knife blade and slipped it into his pocket. "We'll need some more firewood for tonight. I won't be gone long."

As he started up the slope, Leah scooted from beneath the lean-to and stood up to scratch her legs, arching her back to ease the stiffness from lying on the hard ground. The action tipped her head back, and a black object in the sky overhead caught her eye.

A buzzard was slowly circling. Leah shuddered, bringing her gaze swiftly to earth to focus on the slide. She was glad that the rock and debris had buried the plane and Grady. The desert scavenger was wasting his time.

She didn't want to let her thoughts dwell on its menacing presence, so she turned toward the western horizon. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the late afternoon sky, she studied the empty blueness. There was not a speck of anything. Surely by now the rescue party would be widening their search grid, she thought.

Her parents had probably received the notification that she was missing—and her brother, too. Oh, Lonnie, what a rotten birthday present! Tears misted her eyes at the dispiriting thought of the agony her family was going through.

An explosive sound ripped the air. Her first reaction was that a car had backfired before she realized that the idea was ludicrous because there were no cars. It had to have been a gunshot.

In a flash of memory, she recalled the pistol Reilly carried in his waistband of his levis. What could he have been shooting at? A snake? Terror gripped her throat. This area was probably crawling with venomous rattlesnakes.

"What if he's been bitten?" The thought, uttered aloud, made it seem all the more possible.

Spinning, she raced toward the slope. Her widened hazel eyes scanned the rocky ledge where he had disappeared from sight.

"Reilly! Reilly!" she screamed.

His reply was instant, and calmly clear. "It's all right," he called.

A few seconds later he appeared at the rim of the ledge, tall and bronzed and cloaked with an air of competency. Her knees threatened to buckle under her at the sight of him. Perspiration plastered his white shirt against his muscular chest. His hair glistened blue-black in the sun.

"I heard a shot." Leah's voice trembled.

An arm raised to show a jackrabbit dangling lifeless from his hand. "Tonight's dinner," he explained offhandedly. "I'll be down as soon as I get the firewood."

Then he disappeared again. He had looked so compellingly masculine standing there, a fact Leah had noted before, but it had never struck as forcibly as it had a second ago. She suddenly began to wonder about the women in his life and whether there was a special one that belonged to him.

Remembering the strong arms that had held her in sleep last night and the hard length of his body lying beside hers, she realized she envied the woman, if there was one. As a lover, Reilly—She stopped, shaking her head wryly. Her thoughts were becoming decidedly intimate.

Turning away from the slope, she walked back to the clearing. She knelt beside the box of food supplies, forcing her mind to concentrate on the task of deciding what could be served with the rabbit Reilly had shot. Setting aside a dried vegetable pouch, she added a packet of peaches to the water left in the pan.

When Reilly came down the slope a few minutes later laden with an armload of wood, she was still stirring the peaches, trying to hasten their absorption of the water. It was difficult not to look at him with the new sensual awareness that she felt.

She did her best to ignore it, though. "I hope you don't expect me to clean that rabbit. I wouldn't know the first thing about skinning it," she said, eyeing the limp animal distastefully.

"Then you can watch me," Reilly grinned crookedly.

"No, thanks." She turned quickly back to her peaches, catching the gleam of devilry that sparkled in his look. "You fix the rabbit and I'll take care of the rest of the dinner."

She kept her attention firmly riveted on her task. Blood didn't make her squeamish, but the sight of that small carcass being cleaned wasn't all that pleasant.

"When I heard the shot, I had visions of a rattlesnake attacking you," she said.

"It's too hot for them to be out. They come to hunt just before sunrise and shortly after sundown," Reilly explained. "Besides, rattlesnakes don't attack. They're relatively timid reptiles. The only time a person has to worry about them is if he's unwary enough to stumble on one."

"Remind me not to go wandering about, then," she said with mock seriousness.

Reilly chuckled quietly, a pleasant sound that Leah found she liked very much. Glancing surreptitiously at his chiselled features, so lean and powerful, there was a lot she liked about him.

Later, after their meal of roasted rabbit, they sat and watched the orange sun wavering above the horizon. The western sky was painted a brilliant scarlet orange, the distant mountain range set afire with its flaming light.

There was so much emptiness in the wilderness land Leah studied. It was as if she and Reilly were the only two people on the whole of the earth.

She stared unblinkingly at the sunset. "Do you think the search planes will find us tomorrow?"

"Possibly."

A thin thread of fear stretched over her nerves. She turned. "What if they don't find us, Reilly? What if we're stranded here forever?"

He held her gaze for a long moment, looking deep into her hazel eyes. Then he smiled faintly and shook his head. "We won't be. We'll get out of here."

"Of course," she sighed, silently chiding herself for giving in to that momentary twinge of fear.

The plane had crashed only twenty-four hours ago, hardly enough time to start panicking that they wouldn't be found. One day, her mind echoed; it seemed much longer than that.

Standing, Reilly added two more small logs to the dying fire and took down the lean-to so the stiff blanket could be used as a cover. While the dwindling sunlight still gave enough light to see, he smoothed away the top layer of stones where their bed would be.

With the departure of the sun, the air became instantly chilled. Leah moved closer to the small fire, staring into its flames. Its toasting warmth couldn't reach her back. When she started shivering Reilly suggested it was time they went to sleep. A blanket of stars was overhead as she curled against him.

The second day was longer than the first. A great part of the first day had been occupied recovering what they could from the plane, finding water, building a fire, improvising cooking utensils and erecting the lean-to. None of that needed to be done the second day and time rested heavily on Leah's mind.

The heat of the sun seemed more intense, the perspiration prickling her skin. All day long, her gaze restlessly searched the sky for the rescue plane. The inactivity of waiting scraped at her nerves, although Reilly's outward composure of stoic calm didn't seem affected by it.

Only once had she seen anything. Jumping to her feet, she had pointed excitedly to the flash of sunlight on metal wings. "There! It's a plane, isn't it?"

As he stood beside her, his piercing gaze had searched the sky until he, too, saw the slow-flying plane far in the distance. "Yes, it's a plane," he had agreed calmly.

"I'll let them know we're here." She had turned sharply to get the canteen to douse the fire and send up the smoke signal that would reveal their location.

Strong fingers curled around her wrist, halting her. "It's too far away now."

Leah had waited, her gaze riveted on the plane, praying fervently for it to fly toward them. But it had continued on its course southward, growing smaller until it had disappeared.

"It will come back," she had declared in a low voice to conceal her disappointment and the fraying edges of despair.

But it hadn't.

That night Leah slept badly. The hard ground couldn't provide a cushion for her aching muscles already stiffened by two previous nights on the uncomfortable bed. Reilly slept with infuriating ease, wakening only twice to reach from beneath the cover to add wood from a nearby stack to the fire.

Awakening from a fitful doze, Leah discovered it was morning. She groaned at her lack of restful sleep and laid her head back on Reilly's arm to stare disgustedly at the brilliant blue sky. Her left arm throbbed painfully. She shifted against him, trying to ease her arm into a more comfortable and less painful position.