Running Wild (10 page)

The trail widened again, giving them the chance to ride side
by side. “Do you know Nicholas,” she ventured, “it has occurred to me how handy
you are with that rifle. I suppose that if you hadn’t accompanied me, that
mountain lion would have eaten me.”

He regarded her swiftly, scarcely long enough for her to
mark a gleam of amusement in his blue eyes. “Pro’bly not, ma’am. Might’ve
bitten you, tho’. I expect you’d have escaped it after that, being the kinda
woman you are.”

Because, no doubt, he believed that she so resembled a man
in size and spirit that she did not want a man to help her out of a scrape. “I
suspect being bitten is not precisely a delight,” she answered, trying to keep
her voice light. It didn’t work—her disappointment turned the lightness to
acid.

This time when he looked at her, he didn’t turn away. His
eyes, in fact, were warmly appraising, running the length of her body before
settling on her face again. “I reckon, ma’am, you’d‘ve tossed the beast off
straightaway, then clubbed it with the nearest tree branch, but good,” he said,
in a voice traced with respect and admiration. “It’d have killed you all the
same.”

The way his eyes touched her—it didn’t
feel
like
sexual indifference. To be sure, when she combined it with the tone of his
voice, his gaze actually conveyed warm, masculine appreciation. “Surely not if
I received medical attention fairly quickly? I am not that delicate, after all,
Nicholas,” she pointed out, her heart skipping a beat as she waited for his
reaction.

His lips twitched. “No, ma’am, you aren’t, but that animal
was rabid, and a bite from a rabid animal is well-nigh a death sentence. Can’t
say I’ve ever seen a rabid-ridden man, but I’ve heard of the affects. It’s a
mighty miserable way to die.”

“Ah, so then your rifle did save me, didn’t it? You know,” she
said slowly as her mind latched onto a scheme to get him alone again, just in
case she was wrong about his interest. “I believe I should like to learn how to
shoot one.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Shoot? No, ma’am, no good reason for
you to learn that. Long as you’re in Colorado, I can—” He paused. “We can,
protect you.”

“And when I leave?” she said with a small laugh. “Although
you’ve not seen many rabid men in Colorado, I assure you I’ve met at
least
half a dozen in Boston and Newport, never mind New York!”

Including
, a sudden voice flashed through her brain,
one
secret admirer
.

Ridiculous. Romeo adored her. He was shy, not rabid. She’d
experienced far more harm from the men who actively fought the movement, than
from a secret admirer who confined his antipathy to gently-written scolding.

“Well, now that I come to study on it,” he reasoned out
loud, “I have heard some pretty rough stories about New York. Five Points and
those gangs and all. Still, though, I reckon totin’ a rifle to all your balls
and parties might cause gossip,” he finished his voice marbled with amusement.

“Oh no, how can you say so? I should quickly make it all the
rage. You’ve no idea how hard New Yorkers try to outdo each other with odd and
extravagant behavior. I should, I believe, have my rifle incrusted with
jewels!”

He chuckled. “That’d set if off balance, and you’d never
again get a clean shot.”

“Is that so? I never knew that, since, of course, I’ve never
shot
one. Now, seriously, Nicholas, I should like to learn. Promise
you’ll teach me, won’t you?”

Nicholas glanced her way speculatively. “It’s not an easy
thing to learn. You’d do best to find other matters to occupy your time in
Colorado.”

“And what would that be? Needlepoint? I warn you, I’m far
more dangerous with a needle than I should ever be with a rifle! The embroidery
I’ve created could scare a person into the great beyond!”

He grinned, chuckling again. “Not your cup of tea, huh?
O.K., then, I’ll teach you to shoot a rifle. Long as your Pa agrees to it, that
is.”

She beamed at him. “Then it is decided, for Father rarely
denies my anything.”

He shook his head ruefully. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve noticed that.”

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Nick walked into the house and closed the door with one
foot, while dropping the mail on the side table with his right hand and tugging
on his gun belt with his left. Nothin’ like being a rancher to make a body
capable of doing three things at once. After hanging up his coat and gun belt
on a wooden peg, he picked up the stack of mail. Shuffling through it, he
started across the entryway into the parlor, heading for the library. A bill
for barbed wire, a letter from Rick in his large, mostly-illegible scrawl,
another to Melinda from Lilah in her careful, neat hand—

“Why good afternoon, Nicholas. You’ve returned from town
early, haven’t you? I was under the impression that you’d left for the night.”

Nick’s head jerked up at the sound of Star’s deep, melodious
voice. Dressed in a white and purple flowered dress, she was sitting with a
book in her lap on the brown, leather sofa, in front of a large fire. A heavy
black shawl was drape around her shoulders and she’d curled her feet up under
her gown. Her shoes were on the floor next to the sofa. Why was that seductive?
Feet were not sensual. They were hard, smelly attachments to the legs, useful
only to get a body from one place to another. There wasn’t a thing about ’em
that that a man could find seductive.

Most likely Star’s were soft and perfumed, though, with
pretty little toes, wiggling in joy when—

Sonuvabitch!

“Just went in for supplies and mail,” Nick answered and
jerked hard on the reins of lust, so easily pulled from his grip these days.

She smiled and reached up to play with her earring as she
tilted her head. Dressed as she was, seated as she was, she ought to be the
picture of maidenly innocence. The gleam in her eyes told a man an entirely
different story. “Is that so? I thought Mondays were your—how shall I phrase
this?—your
night in town
.”

“That’d be Tuesdays and Saturdays, ma’am,” he answered
blandly. “And an occasional Thursday.”

She laughed and straightened her head once more, all attempt
at innocence gone. “You know, that is one of the things I like the most about
you, Nicholas. You never dissemble.”

“Why should I, when you don’t either? Besides, we’re both
old enough to understand a man’s needs.”

The gleam turned to a wicked sparkle. “And a woman’s.”

Damn, just when he got a good grasp on those reins, she yanked
’em out of his hands as easily as if he were a child. “Reckon I know somethin’
about them, too,” he answered, before he thought it through. Ah hell, he ought
not to have said that. The last thing the woman needed was encouragement.

“I expect you do. That is certainly another reason I like
you so much.”

Damn
! He drew a breath, then answered abruptly, “What
made you decide to sit in here? Melinda’s parlor is a cozier place to read.
She’s got the stove and all.”

Amusement glittering in her eyes, she smiled and shifted
slightly in her seat, adjusting her legs. For a few seconds her toes peeped out
from under her gown—the longest few seconds of Nick’s life. “In some ways,
perhaps. Father and Mother are in there with Melinda and the children. It’s
quieter here and. . . .” She paused. Her gaze moved around the room, passing
over windows and furniture, before catching his eyes again. A puzzle appeared
between her brows. “I’m more comfortable here. I do so love the smell of wood
smoke.”

Her voice took on a slightly wistful quality, which touched
Nick’s heart. “Me too. Melinda’s nagged me to put in a coal-burning stove like
in her parlor. Truth is what she really wants is a furnace and central heating.
Hate to have the house ripped up like that, though.”

Star shrugged. “I’m warm enough.”

She shouldn’t be. An Easterner like her, used to all kinds
of luxury from furnaces to telephones, ought to hate it.

“O.K.,” he said. He shuffled through the mail and tried to
shove aside the peculiar sense of connection that floated on the air whenever
they were together. The more he saw her and the more they talked, the more it
grew. He sure didn’t need to become attached to a woman who lived over a
thousand miles away.

“Let’s see what I got here for you.” He seated himself on
the edge of the sofa, leaving a goodly distance between his thigh and those
pretty feet. He withdrew two large, stuffed envelopes with feminine writing
scrawled across the front, along with a slimmer packet, neatly addressed in
small letters with the precision of a man’s hand. Instead of a return address,
the man had drawn a black rose. It gave Nick the creeps. She sure had strange
friends, he thought handing her the letters. He was starting to rise when she
gasped. The color drained from her face as she stared at the envelope.

“Problem?” he asked frowning.

“I—I—” she stuttered. She looked up at him. Shadows from the
fireplace pranced across her face, making it appear anxious and pinched. Nick’s
muscles tightened. He’d never seen Star truly scared. Not even when confronted
by two hundred pounds of rabid cougar.

She forced a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s just . .
. why you see. . . I haven’t told many people where I am. Just a close friend
or two and the editors of the magazine to which I contribute. I was treating
this as a sort of holiday.”

“So the man who wrote that isn’t one of those people?”

“N—no, I don’t think so,” she said. She drew in a breath,
then turned the envelope over and passed a well-manicured finger under the
flap.

“You don’t
think
so?”

“You see the thing is, well I don’t quite know who he is.”
She pulled out two sheets of paper, carefully written in the same small, tight
male writing. “He’s my secret admirer.”

“Secret admirer,” Nick repeated, watching her spread the
paper in her lap. Ordinarily it’d have amused him, but the increased pitch of
her voice and the tension in her jaw stole the merriment from the situation.
“Sounds silly, if you ask me.”

“Yes,” she said absentmindedly. “You’re right, of—” She
stopped abruptly.

“What?”

“Nothing. Not really.”

“You don’t look as if it’s nothing. Can I read it?”

She lifted her head. The gold in her eyes had darkened to a
light brown. “If you wish, but it’s really just flummery.”

Except that she was ghost-pale.

He pulled the paper from her lap, shoving aside a flash of
desire when his fingers brushed over her thighs.

Grimacing, Nick raised his head. “It’s god awful. Does he
really think you’d like this kinda hogwash?”

She let out a tiny laugh and her eyes brightened a mite.
“You don’t consider me poetic, Nicholas?”

“I’d reckon you’re more a Poe kind of woman than Shelley.”

“Are you accusing me of being unfeminine?”

He grinned and shook his head. “Never, ma’am. Only not a
shrinking violet. Or the kind of woman who’d put much store in lines like. . .”
He looked down and read, “‘such as these much surely bring you to the blush.’”

“Ah, then I am coarse.” Something flickered in her eye.
Insecurity. It coursed over his nerves, then pierced his heart. He rarely
marked any degree of vulnerability in Star Montgomery; she behaved as if she
owned the world. Yet here she was looking at him as if anxious that he’d take
her straight-to-the-point forwardness as lacking gentility. The truth was, he
appreciated not needing to constantly guess her thoughts. “No, ma’am,” he said
gently. “Just not silly enough to blush at the word bosom.”

She studied him a moment. The vulnerability melted under the
heat rising in those eyes, as passion ignited and flickered in the air between
them.

“Yes, well,” she said after a moment and reached for the
letter, “I did tell you it was nothing—”

He held tightly to the sheets. “I’m not done.” He began
reading again.

“I told you. . . .” she started then trailed off.

Two more paragraphs of lush, poetic descriptions of a woman
the man obviously did not know. Star wouldn’t give the time of day to an hombre
like this. And then. . .

Nick’s shoulders knotted. He looked up. “Error of your
ways?”