The Temptress (4 page)

Ty's eyes twinkled. “I could have taken a paddle to you when you walked out there and started shooting. You should have stayed inside, then when I was out of town, with everybody following me, you could have ridden away, safe and sound. Where'd you learn to shoot like that, anyway?”

“My father. That poor freight man. One minute I'm so ill I can barely sit up and the next—”

“And the next you're leaping onto a horse behind me. Chris, you were great!” He laughed, taking her shoulders and giving her a hard kiss of joy on her mouth.

Blinking, wide-eyed, Chris looked up at him. When he'd kissed her, a spark of pure, undiluted fire had run through her. “Oh,” she whispered and moved toward him.

He released her shoulders as if they burned him, then turned his back on her. “I got to get this horse out of here and we'd better get back before Prescott misses us,” he mumbled.

Chris felt a little lost, not sure what she'd done wrong. He'd seemed so pleased with her, so happy a moment ago, and he'd kissed her. Not a kiss of passion, but one of friendship, between two people who'd shared a great deal, but when she'd shown interest in him, he'd moved away.

Glancing down at her body, she wondered if maybe she wasn't appealing to him. All her life she'd been told she was pretty, but her curves were subtle, not exaggerated as was the fashion.

“The maid at Mr. Lanier's who recognized you, was her name Elsie?”

“Yeah,” he said under his breath, his back still to her. “You leave first and I'll come later.”

With a sigh, Chris began climbing the steep bank, pushing vines away as she climbed. Elsie was the same height as Chris but weighed thirty pounds more—and all of it equally distributed above and below a twenty-inch waist. If that's the kind of woman he liked, no wonder he moved away from Chris.

She sighed all the way back to camp, fastening buttons that had come undone in the fracas.

“Are you all right?” Asher greeted her. “You were gone an awfully long time.”

“I'm fine,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “And you?”

“I'm all right and I'm glad you got some rest. Tomorrow will probably be another hard day of riding.”

“Yes,” she said, looking at him over her cup. “I am glad to rest. Is there anything to eat? Long afternoon naps make me ravenously hungry.”

Chris didn't see Tynan until the next morning. Twice, she tried to catch his eye, to smile at him, but he wouldn't look at her. It was as if he wanted to pretend yesterday hadn't happened.

Yet, the more he ignored her, the more she watched him. They stopped to make camp in the afternoon and Tynan immediately put Asher and Chris together. Chris sat and watched Ty as he took care of the horses and as he walked past her, she was sure that once she saw him limp. Could he have hurt himself yesterday? He kept that blasted hat pulled down over his face so far that she couldn't really see his face, but as she watched, she saw him grimace as he lifted one arm to take the reins of the horse. Asher looked annoyed once, but Chris kept on watching every move Tynan made—and the more she saw, the more she was convinced that he was in constant pain.

Chris gave a big yawn. “I think I'm rather tired and if no one minds, I'll go down the trail and take a nap.”

Tynan turned around and, briefly, his eyes met Chris's, but he looked away almost instantly. “Don't go too far,” he mumbled as he passed her and went down the trail into the forest.

“Are you sure you wouldn't rather take a walk with me, Chris?” Asher asked. “I would so like to hear more about your newspaper work.”

“I really am very tired. Perhaps another time,” she said as she took up her sleeping roll and carpet bag, and, acting as if she could barely move, she started down the trail behind Tynan.

As soon as she was out of Asher's sight, she opened her carpet bag, removed her medical kit and started running down the path, hoping she could catch Tynan before he disappeared.

She seemed to have gone a long way and there was no sign of him when she thought she heard a horse neigh. Doing what she knew she shouldn't, she left the trail to walk to a place where she hoped she could see what was below her.

The area off the trail was frightening to her, she was afraid of the covered drop-offs that Ty had shown them, and who knew what lurked beneath the layers of greenery?

She made it to the base of an enormous tree, parted the hanging moss and looked below. Tynan was standing several feet below in a rocky clearing, his shirt off, rubbing down one of the horses. When he turned and she saw his back, she let out a little gasp. She had been horribly right when she thought he moved as if he were in pain. Even from several feet away, she could see that the gashes that crisscrossed his back were only half healed. And she was sure the wounds had been made by a whip. What he'd done yesterday, tearing about on his horse, hauling her up, her clutching his back, must have caused him untold amounts of pain.

She waited until he'd turned again, so that he was facing her, and then she moved back into the forest, acting as if she were just coming out of it. She made a lot of noise and called his name.

When she emerged and could see him, he'd put his shirt on and was just pulling on his boots.

“Here,” he called up to her.

“How do I get down there?”

“You don't. Go back to the camp.”

She smiled at him and took a tentative step forward, as if she meant to go straight down the side of the drop off.

“No!” Tynan yelled, but it was too late.

Chris had meant to only pretend to go down that way but, what she'd thought was ground wasn't and she went sliding down the hill on her back.

Tynan ran across the clearing and leaped on top of her to keep her from sliding any farther.

Instinctively, Chris's arms went around him, clutching him close to her. When he lifted his head and looked at her, she was aware of his body on top of hers with every fiber of her being. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her—and she welcomed him.

He was a half inch from her lips before he jumped up, leaving her lying on the steep bank. For just a moment, he turned away from her and she had the distinct impression that he was trying to control his emotions. When he turned back, his eyes were alight, but he seemed calm otherwise. “I told you to go back to the camp. And I thought you were too tired to go anywhere and needed to rest.”

“I lied,” she said with a smile.

“And do you often lie, Miss Mathison?”

“Not nearly as often as the other people in this party,” she said, blinking her eyes innocently. “You tell me the truth and I'll tell you the truth. I think that's fair.”

He seemed to start to say something, but changed his mind because he turned away from her and went back to the horse. “There's a trail over there. You can use it to get back to the path that takes you to the camp.”

She stood, straightened her skirt and retrieved the medical kit that had come down with her. “Actually, I was searching for you because I wanted to have a look at your back.”

“My what?!” he said, turning toward her with a face full of fury. “Look, Miss Mathison, I don't know what you're after but I've had about all I can take.” He was moving forward, pointing the horse brush at her, and Chris was backing up. “Maybe you think I'm going to be one of those people in one of your stories but you've got another think coming. I was hired by your father to take you and Prescott through this forest and to take you home to him. I did
not
bargain for you following me everywhere I go nor did I expect for you to keep leaping out at me without a stitch of clothes on. Under different circumstances, I'd enjoy your entertainment, but on this trip I got a job to do and I plan to do it no matter what you do to tempt me. You, lady, are Satan in one beautiful package. Now get out of here and leave me alone. I don't want to see you until I wake you in the morning—and I might even get somebody else to do that.”

He closed his mouth abruptly, turned his back on her and went back to the horse.

“All right,” Chris said. “I'll return to camp and tell Mr. Prescott that your back is a mass of lacerations that look as if they may become infected and also tell him that something is wrong with your feet. I'm sure the mutiny will be over and done with in no time and you will no longer be our leader and you can return to wherever it is that you refuse to tell anyone. Good day, Mr. Tynan,” she said as she started toward the path he'd pointed out.

She'd gone no more than three feet before she heard a muttered oath behind her and what sounded like the horse brush being thrown down with some force.

“All right,” he said loudly and Chris turned toward him. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Remove your shirt and boots and lie down on your stomach there on that patch of moss.”

“I guess I should be glad you don't want anything else,” he mumbled sulkily but did as she asked.

As Chris knelt beside him and looked at his back, she saw that the wounds were worse than she'd thought when she'd seen them from a distance. Most of them were healing well but a few had broken open yesterday. She imagined that they were very, very painful. Taking a deep breath, she opened her case and withdrew some salve.

“This will help ease the pain,” she said softly and began to soothe it on his skin. His back was broad and he was quite muscular but there was little more than skin covering his muscles, hardly any fat. He looked as if he'd been worked very hard and fed very little.

When she felt him begin to relax under her fingers, she said, “How long were you in prison?”

“Two years,” he answered quickly, then whispered, “Damn!”

“Mr. Tynan, I am a newspaper reporter and I work hard at observing. I don't know anywhere else that a man can be worked at hard labor, starved and beaten—at least not in America.”

“And if there was such a place you'd get yourself thrown in there so you could write a story about it, right? Am I going to be your next story? ‘I went through the rain forest with an escaped prisoner.' Something to that effect?”

“Did
you escape? Somehow, I thought my father had you released.”

When he didn't reply, she knew she'd hit close to home. “You see, Mr. Tynan, I know my father quite well. If he wanted someone to take me through an impenetrable forest, he wouldn't hesitate when people said it couldn't be done. He'd just find out how to do it. My guess is that he found that you'd been through the forest and it wouldn't matter to him if you were on your way to the gallows. He has enough money and power to cut any ropes, even if they're hanging around someone's neck.”

“He'd trust his daughter to a murderer?” Tynan asked, turning his head to look at her.

She was thoughtful for a moment. “No, I don't think he would. I believe that my mother and I are the only people he's ever really loved. I wasn't sure he was going to recover after my mother died, but I think he decided he still had me.”

“But you're saying that he put you under the care of a criminal, someone rescued from the hangman's noose.”

She paused in rubbing the cream into his wounds. “Mr. Tynan, you must be an innocent man. You're perfectly right that my father would never entrust my care to a villain. Yes, of course, that's it. You're either innocent or you did something that wasn't violent. Breach of promise perhaps.” Smiling, she resumed smoothing the cream on his back. By now, she was as much massaging his muscles as doctoring him.

“How close am I to the truth?” she asked and when he didn't answer, she laughed. “You see, Mr. Tynan, we all give clues to ourselves, no matter how hard we try to conceal them. I'm sure Mr. Prescott has no idea that you are in pain every time you move, but if you watch, you begin to see things about people.”

She kept rubbing his back, greasing her hands and running them over the curves of muscle in his arms, massaging until she felt him relaxing completely. His breathing was soft and deep, as if he were asleep. All Chris's motherly instincts rose within her. How she'd like to take this man home and feed him and see that he rested. She wondered if her father's housekeeper, Mrs. Sunberry, had met him. If she had, Chris was willing to bet she liked Tynan.

Smiling, Chris lifted one of Ty's hands and began to massage it, being careful of his scarred, raw wrist.

“I'm not hurt there,” he murmured sleepily but made no attempt to move.

“I was thinking about Mrs. Sunberry.”

“Blackberry cobbler,” Ty said. “With cinnamon in the crust.”

Chris laughed. “So you did meet her. I thought she'd like you.”

“Like adopting a stray dog?”

“You're a stray perhaps, but certainly not a dog. Ty, where were you born?”

He moved as if he meant to get up but she pushed him back down.

“All right, no more questions, but please don't get angry again. It's too nice a day to ruin with anger.” She ran her hands in his hair and began to massage his scalp.