Depending on the Doctor (Nevada Bounty Book 2) (14 page)

Just as the heat of the water and fireplace had me feeling drowsy, the door opened and shut, letting in a sharp blast of cold. The rows of hanging clothes hid whoever had come in.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“Lydia? Where are you?”

It was Emmett. His voice sounded urgent and concerned. The rows of clothing bobbed and jerked as he tried to find his way through.

“I’m in the bath.”

The movement stopped. “Are you decent?”

“I’m naked, so no.”

“We need to talk.”

“So talk. I can hear you.”

“I can’t talk to you while hiding in the laundry.”

“All right. Hand me one of the towels from the shelf.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Whyever not?”

“You should get your own towel.”

“But it’s cold, and I’ll drip all over.”

I thought I heard him growl. “Lydia, why can you never make things easy?”

He wrestled his way through the laundry and finally burst free in a swirl of shirts and trousers. His back was to me, his coat stretched taut across his shoulders, his pants tight across his behind and thighs.

He grabbed a towel from the shelf.

I swallowed hard. I’d made a mistake. How would he hand me a towel without seeing me naked? The same thought must have occurred to him, because he hesitated. But not for long.

He turned and opened the towel, ready to wrap it around me. His eyes met mine and held my gaze while he took the two steps to the tub. I crossed my arms over my chest, and pulled my legs up to cover myself as best I could. My heart hammered in my chest. Sweat dripped down my neck. There wasn’t a hint of cold in the room. It was hot as a Roman steam bath.

I watched him watch me. “Stand up,” he said.

“Emmett…”

“Stand up, Lydia. You asked me for a towel. Now take it from me.”

My insides did all kinds of acrobatics. It felt like a beehive had taken up residence, except the hive had burst, and the bees swarmed inside my belly, while the thick, warm honey spilled down into my nether region. Everything throbbed down there with liquid fire.

I was afraid, but inexplicably excited, too. I shouldn’t be excited about being naked in front of a fully clothed man. But I was.

“Before the blizzard blows the building down, Lydia.”

“Close your eyes,” I said.

A smile crept across his face. “I don’t think so.”

The look in his eyes said he was hungry to see me, like he wanted to see
me
, nobody else. A fresh jolt of heat struck me, unleashing a boldness I didn’t recognize in myself. I wanted him to see me.

I uncrossed my arms and braced my hands on the edges of the tub, using them to push myself up. I stood in front of him, naked and dripping wet, for a handful of heartbeats before I flushed. I took a step forward.

“No,” he said. “Don’t move. I want to look at you.”

I blushed even harder and looked down. But I stayed put.

His gaze caressed me as if he’d actually touched me and my nipples hardened at the thought of it. My skin tingled under his attention.

“Jesus, Lydia. You’re so beautiful.”

His voice was a strangled whisper. I looked up at him and his expression was as naked as my body.

I stepped forward into the towel, and he wrapped it around me, pulling me into a hug. I put my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. Rough and warm, he smelled of dirt and the sweat from hard work.

“You need a bath, too,” I said into his shirt.

“Are you inviting me in?”

I pulled back and looked up at him. “I…don’t…the water’s cold now.”

He chuckled. “I was kidding. Sort of. I’d actually really love to take a bath with you, but if I did I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you.”

“You want to put your hands on me?” It was an idea so far from anything I’d ever imagined possible, that the words were out of my mouth before I realized how ridiculous they sounded.

He slipped a finger under my chin and lifted until I was forced to meet his gaze. “You have no idea how much, my dear.”

Before I could respond, he leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. It was light and brief, and it surprised a little sound from the back of my throat. He answered with a sound of his own that spoke of desire and possession, then he kissed me.

His lips were firm and warm. His whiskers tickled. My insides turned completely liquid, and when he slid his tongue along the seam of my lips, an implicit request for entry, everything inside me slid down between my legs in a molten cascade and suddenly all of me wanted to open up to him. To let him do whatever he wanted to me. My blood sang for him with every heartbeat.

Then a cold splash of fear hit me. What was I thinking?

I wasn’t thinking, that was the problem.

Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered Daisy talking about how it felt to be with a man.

I pulled away before I could open my mouth and let him in.

I cleared my throat. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He watched me for a long moment. I saw the struggle in his eyes—kiss me again or back away. Back away finally won and I let out a breath.

He went to the fireplace to bank the fire. “Get out of there and get dressed. We need to get back to the cabin. The blizzard is getting worse.”

“You can talk while I dress.”

“You’re not going to like what I have to say.”

My stomach twisted. “Why. What did you do?”

I dried while he talked.

“Keep in mind that you’ve already made choices for both of us without consulting me first.”

He reached for my coat, which I’d hung on a hook by the fireplace.

I dressed quickly. “Okay…”

He turned to face me, holding my coat for me. I slid my arms into the sleeves. “Last night Clyde cornered me. He asked me if we were married.”

I sat on the hearth to lace my boots. “What did you tell him?”

“That we weren’t, but we were on our way to be when we ran into him.”

I stood and buttoned my coat. “I suppose that makes sense.”

He urged me toward the door and just before opening it into the whistling wind, he said, “I’m glad you think so, because we’re to be married tomorrow.”

The howling wind swallowed her response. I’d taken the coward’s way out. We could have stayed and talked more, but with the ghost of her lips on mine, I had to admit that if we’d stayed I wouldn’t have wanted to talk much, so leaving was the best idea. I should have told her the worst of it, but I hoped to keep the whole pregnancy thing out of it. She seemed to accept the scenario I’d given her, and I wanted to leave it at that.

Just in case, though, I’d spent any free moments I’d had during the day laying my hands on supplies and secreting them into a corner of the barn to hide them for a time in the future when we could escape. I hadn’t managed much—a couple of blankets, a canteen, a bit of food. I’d need a little more time to collect what we needed.

I had found a good hunting knife in the barn, and slid it into my boot before Lyle had caught up with me. He’d been an annoying shadow most of the day, but I’d managed to shake him often enough.

Lydia and I made it back to the cabin and when we burst inside and slammed the door behind us, the whole gang stared at us. We may as well have been on stage in front of an eager audience, with no performance prepared.

From their faces, I figured Clyde had been talking. I had to hope all seven of them could keep a secret. I figured, given their occupation, the chances had to be better than average, but gossip was a different story. Gossip was tempting.

I helped Lydia with her coat.

“Why are they staring at us like that?” she whispered.

“Clyde probably told them about us getting married. Don’t worry it’ll be fine. Why don’t you go help Billy with supper?”

She gave me a suspicious, squinty glare, but headed for the hearth anyway.

It would be a long blizzard if I had to figure out how to manage Lydia and all seven outlaws, and avoid any of them saying the words pregnant, baby, or any reference to them.

Clyde and Dom approached me. “It’s all set up,” Clyde said. “Dom’s agreed to perform the wedding tomorrow. Did you talk to her?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“She’s not happy about it. Wants to wait.”

Clyde shook his head. “Women just don’t understand.”

I glanced at Dom. He shrugged. I was pretty sure Clyde didn’t understand, but I wasn’t about to say so.

“Well, she did have certain expectations for her life, and getting pregnant out of wedlock, then getting married by a disgraced priest—no offense Dom—in an outlaw hideout, probably weren’t among her dreams,” I said. “If you could give her a couple more days to get used to the idea, she might be more likely to accept it.”

Maybe in a couple more days the blizzard would have cleared, and we’d have enough supplies to leave.

“No. We’ll do it tomorrow,” Clyde said. “It’ll be a nice distraction during a blizzard.”

I hope he didn’t expect our wedding night to be part of the distraction.

“Supper,” Billy said.

Lydia served out plates, and the men stood in line to receive them, then settled at the table. Billy placed a plate of bread on the table, along with a slab of butter.

Once we were all seated, nobody talked much as they all tucked into their food, but tension filled the air. Or maybe I just anticipated the worst.

“Good thing you cut all that wood this morning, Wilder,” Lyle said. “Looks like we’ll need it for the next few days.”

“How long do you think this blizzard will last?” Lydia asked.

“Hard to tell,” Lyle answered. “Winter in Wyoming is tricky. Could be a couple hours and done, or could last for three or four days.”

“I remember a blizzard about five years back that lasted a solid week,” Pete said. “I ran with another gang then, and we got caught out in the open when it hit. What with the flat prairie, you could see it coming miles away, kind of like a sandstorm in the desert, but cold and snowy instead. We tried to outrun it, but before we could get to the nearest shelter, it hit us.”

“What did you do?” Lydia asked, and I blessed her for her sincere interest because it diverted everyone’s attention for a while anyway.

“Well, we changed course and headed for these same Bighorns, but further south. For a while the visibility was so bad we rode blind. We stopped the first night and forced the horses down in a tight circle and we all huddled in the middle. That was the longest night of my life. Thought I’d freeze to death.”

Lydia’s eyes were big as saucers. “You all survived?”

“No. We lost two men and a horse that night. But the next day the wind let up enough to see better and we made it to the mountains and found a cave. All of us squeezed inside. We managed a small fire and waited out the storm.”

Lydia reached across the table and patted Pete’s hand. “Well, it’s lucky you survived,” she said, then gave him a stern look. “Though it might have been an opportunity to re-evaluate your choices in life.”

He had the good sense to look chastised, though I had to smile at how Lydia could be captured by a gang of desperados and shortly thereafter become so comfortable in their midst that she could scold one of them for being a desperado. And he took her seriously.

I shook my head and took another bite of bread.

“You’ll make a good mother,” Slim said.

I almost choked on the bread in my mouth. All the other men at the table turned to glare at him.

“What?” Slim said. “She will.”

Lydia gave him a sweet smile. “That’s kind of you to say, Slim.”

I swallowed and exhaled. “This is a great supper, Lydia.” I said, hoping to distract everyone.

“Thank you.”

Everyone fell silent again, working on cleaning their plates. It stretched uncomfortably, the only sounds in the room the crackle of the fire, the scrape of spoons on tin plates, and the howl of the wind outside.

Until Lydia spoke up.

“Clyde, about the wedding tomorrow—”

“We’re looking forward to it,” I said.

She shot me a look that normally would have shut me up, but this time I was willing to do just about anything to keep her in line, including walk out into the roaring blizzard.