Brody (9 page)

“God, I hate those pins and needles you get.” He got to his feet, still wearing only trousers, half-buttoned trousers. As he shook the sleep out of his arm, she watched him, fascinated by the man fully revealed in the light.

He was more slender than her brothers but had muscles on top of muscles, scars on top of scars. He had a warrior’s body, silly as that sounded, and wore his battle wounds as a true man would. The big scar on his jaw just lent him an air of suave danger. His shoulders were wide, his chest covered with dark black hair, leading down his belly to—

“Do you plan on getting off the floor?” He peered down into the basin. “You could’ve gotten rid of the dirty water.”

Olivia started chuckling, which turned into a full-fledged laugh. She laughed until her stomach hurt and tears leaked from her eyes. Brody just went about the business of dumping the water out the window and pouring some fresh into the basin. He didn’t even look at her, giggling like a lunatic on the floor.

A sudden thought had set her off. Here she was, sitting in front of a man in only her chemise on the floor of an unknown hotel room somewhere in Texas, and yet she was not frightened. Brody was the only man she could picture in this scene.

The only man.

Something about the two of them fit together, black to white, a key to a lock. She couldn’t explain it to anyone but she recognized it as the truth. God surely did have a strange sense of humor to leave her with a man she wanted to kiss and kick at the same time.

Olivia was falling in love.

Brody sipped at the hot coffee and stared across the table at Olivia. Her jaw was set, her chin up and her eyes flashing. Miss Graham was not going to go down easily on this fight.

“It’s not just dangerous like getting lost in the dark out on the prairie. You can and might be killed.” The coffee was nice and strong, which he desperately needed after last night.

“I understand that. I heard what you said and I know Mexico is dangerous.” Her brows slammed together. “I’m twenty-one years old and capable of making my own decision on whether I will risk my life.”

“You’re twenty-one?” She acted so independent, Brody had thought she was older.

“Not a word out of you about my advanced spinster age.” She speared her egg with a vengeance.

He was glad he hadn’t sprouted from a chicken’s ass.

“I wouldn’t think of it.” Brody considered how he could convince Olivia to stay behind. He didn’t want her to think too much about what her younger brother might be going through, but he wasn’t above punching low. Sometimes he had to push people away to keep them safe.

She would not thank him for it though.

“Why are you doing this?” He watched her carefully, looking for anything he could use.

“Because it’s been more than half a year since Benjy disappeared. Our circle is not complete without him.” She didn’t flinch, blink or blush. That told him she completely believed every word she said.

Damn.

“You would risk your life to go on a hard ride into hostile territory on the slim chance we’ll find him.” He knew he would have done the same for either of his brothers, had they survived the war. But men were different; there was honor at stake.

“Without a second thought.” She pushed a forkful of eggs in her mouth and there it was. He saw it. Her hand trembled. Now was his chance to scare her back home.

“You will probably not make it back home. If you do, you won’t be the same.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “There will be men who will kill you for looking at them, or rape you for not. There are men who will steal every stitch of clothing from your body, then rape you and leave you to die. There are others who will steal from you, rape you, torture you, and only then kill you.”

She blinked rapidly. “Only if they catch me.”

Brody frowned at her. “I ain’t funnin’ with you, Liv. I’m not trying to scare you.”

“Yes, you are but I expected that.” She took another forkful of eggs. “I won’t change my mind though.”

He sipped his coffee and watched for a minute before he spoke again. “He might be dead.”

Her fork froze in mid-air. “I know.” This time her voice was softer.

“Or worse.”

Her gaze snapped to his and those blue-green orbs were fairly shooting fire at him. “I know.”

“No, you don’t. You think this is going to be like riding in to town to fetch him from a schoolhouse.” He leaned even farther forward until he was six inches from her face. “There are men and women who would pay top dollar for a little white boy. They don’t want him to shine their shoes, Liv. They want young boys so they can play with them in their beds and sometimes in their parlor during a party.”

Her face blanched, making her freckles stand out. “You don’t have to say that.”

“Yes, I do. I need you to understand what we might find so you don’t get the vapors if we do find it.” Before he knew it, he had taken her hands in his. They were cold, clammy and shaking. “He won’t be the same boy you loved and lost. He is no longer Benjy Graham. Even if we find him, you won’t get Benjy back.”

Tears hovered behind her lashes, but she didn’t let them fall. “I don’t care. I can’t just abandon him because bad things happened to him. He’s a little boy and he needs his family. Right now that’s me.
Me
. If there was a fire in the house, I would go after him, no matter if I got burned. If he fell into a ravine and would die within an hour, I would go after him, no matter if I died too.” She pulled her hands away. “I will not give up looking for him, no matter what.”

Brody sat back, strangely satisfied by her response. He expected most women would have turned tail and gone back home where they belonged. Olivia Graham was not that kind of woman. She was the strongest woman he’d ever met, not that he’d tell her that.

“I wanted to make sure you were riding into this with your eyes open.”

“Oh, they’re open, Ranger. And I can see you trying to scare me back home. It isn’t going to work. I will never give up looking until I find him or—” She swallowed hard. “Or his body.”

He was satisfied she at least understood what might or probably would happen to her, and what, on the slim chance they found Benjamin Graham, they would find. There couldn’t be any misunderstandings now.

“Fine then. Finish up your breakfast so we can get going.”

He’d just accepted the fact he was riding into Mexico with Olivia Graham.

Ah, hell.

They finished their breakfast in silence. His mind was whirling with ideas of how to get into Mexico with a woman at his side, one who stood out for more than one reason. They needed to hide her whiteness.

As they rose from their seats, she stopped his musings in their tracks. “If we use some red clay, we can mix it up with water, make my skin and hair darker.”

“What?” He frowned at her. “What did you say?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you expect me not to think, it’s never going to happen.” She took his face in her hands. “Now listen to my words so I don’t have to say this a third time. I’m going to use red clay to darken my skin and hair. It stains everything else, why not me?”

Brody wanted to shake her for talking to him like that. Damned if she didn’t sound just like him too. That annoyed him more than anything.

“Fine. Let’s go get you some mud.”

“Clay.”

“Shut up, Liv.”

They found a vein of rich red clay on the bank of a creek just outside the small town. Olivia didn’t want to be smug until she made sure it was going to work. She dismounted and looked down at herself. If she was right, the clay would stain everything. There was no help for it, she’d have to take off at least the first layer of clothes. She had two buttons undone before he made a noise.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Trying not to stain my clothes while I stain me.” She was halfway down her blouse when his hand landed on hers.

“That’s foolish.”

She shook off his hands. “I don’t have money to spend for new clothes. I want these to last.”

He stared at her as though she had grown a second head. “I don’t understand females.”

“That’s probably a blessing.” She took off her shirt and his mouth tightened. “I’m wearing a chemise, Brody. It’s not as though I’m naked.”

“Might as well be.” He glanced around as though someone was about to come upon them and attack.

She took off her riding skirt and he slapped his forehead.

“Jesus Christ, Liv.”

Olivia chose to ignore him and laid her clothes on the saddle. She put her hair back in a leather strip and stepped toward the creek. After finding a level spot, she knelt down in the grass and took a handful of red clay and a scoopful of water. Mashing them together between her fingers felt good. More than good, it reminded her of playing in the mud with Matt when she was a little girl. She almost enjoyed the cool squish of the clay on her skin.

“You appear to like that mud a bit too much.”

“It’s clay, Brody.”

“I don’t care what the hell it is. Don’t play with it.” He stood beside her, arms crossed, exuding annoyance through every pore.

She rolled her eyes and started rubbing the clay into her skin in a circular motion until she reached her elbows; then she moved to her face.

“You might want to try this yourself.” She closed her eyes and made sure to get her eyelids and forehead covered. “You don’t look Mexican.”

“A little dust and different clothes are all I need.” She heard his boots shift in the dirt behind her. “You plan on keeping that mud on you long?”

“I still have to do my hair.” She sat down cross-legged on the grass and lifted her face toward the sun. “Give me ten minutes to let the clay soak in and then I’ll do my hair.”

More shuffling and cursing behind her; then a gust of air went past her ear.

“Just sit still and I’ll do your damn hair.”

Olivia couldn’t do anything but sit still, mostly from shock. He was helping her?

Sure enough, he tugged on the strip in her hair, then ran his hands through it. Memories of the last time he’d done that rippled through her. He had wonderful hands, even if he had a bossy streak a mile wide. With a surprising amount of speed, he worked the clay into her hair.

“Damn disgusting is what it is,” he grumbled, followed by a lot of splashing. She presumed he was getting the clay off his hands.

Her head felt heavy, weighed down by the thickness coating her skin and hair. The first batch she’d smeared on her arms was already starting to dry and it itched. She should have expected that, but that didn’t make it any easier not to scratch.

She cracked her eye open and peered at him. He sat back on his haunches watching her, the strangest expression on his face. It was the first time she’d seen an emotion other than annoyance or cold anger on his face. If she wasn’t mistaken, she saw concern, a first for the cool-eyed ranger.

They sat in silence for ten minutes while the mud dried on her skin and she tried in vain to ignore the itchiness.

“You look like a mud doll.”

“It’s clay, not mud.” She waited for him to snap back at her but he didn’t.

“You still look like a mud doll.”

Her lips twitched and the clay cracked on her cheeks. “If it works, you’re going to have to apologize.”

“Like hell I will.”

This time she smiled and a chunk of clay fell onto her arm. “I think it’s time I wash it off.” She opened her eyes and glanced down at the dried remnants.

“Do you plan on jumping in the creek?”

It wasn’t a bad idea actually. He might not approve, but her underthings would dry quickly. It would be easier to rinse off her hair if she could dunk her head.

Before she could change her mind, she got to her feet and took off her boots.

“I wasn’t serious, Liv. We don’t have time for you to frolic in the water.”

“I don’t plan on frolicking. I’m just getting clean.” She waded into the water and sucked in a breath as cold water hit her feet. It was definitely no deeper than two feet, but that was enough for what she needed to do.

“Now you look like an abandoned mud doll someone threw in the creek.” He stood on the bank and put his hands on his hips. “Your chemise just turned into a peekaboo.”

Olivia tried to ignore him and his jibes. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen her breasts before, and giving her underclothes a quick rinse wouldn’t hurt.

The clay came away from her skin easily, turning back into a mushy mess that she sloughed off into the gentle current. However, it stuck to her hair and she had to scrub at it for a good five minutes before her hair squeaked between her fingers.

When she emerged from the water, she shivered in the breeze that ran across her wet skin. Goosebumps raced up and down her body. Brody stared hard, his gaze as cold as the water she’d just left.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She resisted the urge to cover her breasts, knowing her nipples were standing at attention.

“Damn, woman, you almost look Mexican.”

It was the closest thing she was probably going to get to his admitting she was right. She nodded, unwilling to dance triumphantly around him, but she kept the knowledge she was right close to her heart.

As she dressed in her dry clothes, he watched, still as stone. Olivia wasn’t one to hurry for a man, especially one who was so doggone bossy, but she found herself moving quickly. Perhaps this was the beginning of a dangerous adventure, or better yet, the promise of doing something to find Benjy.

“Keep your hair tucked under your hat for now. Maybe later we’ll find some more of that mud to darken it again.” He rubbed some dry dirt into his cheeks and neck. “You might want to dirty yourself up too.”

“I just got clean.” She finished buttoning her blouse and began twisting her hair into a tight bun.

“You want to look like a Mexican woman? Your skin isn’t bronze yet, Liv. You need to darken it more.” He rubbed his dirty hands on her cheeks, then dipped down toward her chest.

Darned if her nipples didn’t pop again after just having relaxed. She moved back a step, out of his reach.

“I can dirty myself up, thank you.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he mumbled as he turned toward his horse. “Let’s get going then. Daylight’s burning.”