Early Dawn (29 page)

“Do I have a vote?”

He looked away again. “Not really, no. I have to keep you safe if I can, and this is the best chance I’ve got of doing it.”

“We can take them, Matthew. I know we can.”

He cut his gaze back to her. “You ever killed a man, Eden?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve only killed one. You know what that makes us?
Green
. We can talk big, but when it comes right down to pulling the trigger, what if one of us hesitates? Shooting acorns off trees isn’t the same as drawing down on a man. The Sebastians may be the scum of the earth, but they’re still human beings. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you won’t think about that when you’re about to shoot?”

“No,” Eden replied shakily, “but I’m fairly confident I won’t hesitate. It’ll be them or us.”

“Yes, but if you hesitate, it could be us. I’d have to be nuts to deliberately seek them out when I’ve got you with me.”

“What if my brothers never find us?”

“They’re searching for you, and they’ll find us.”

“But we’ve been brushing away a lot of our tracks to fool the Sebastians. If we’ve fooled them, what’s to say we haven’t fooled my brothers, too?”

“The Sebastians aren’t that smart. Wily, maybe, and hard to predict because they don’t think like normal folks, but if you put all their brains in a pot and gave them a stir, you wouldn’t have a full ladle. They also drink themselves stupid every night, which makes them even dumber, because they’re always hungover. We can outthink them if we use our heads, but the same can’t be said of your brothers. They’ll find us eventually. I’d bet my last double eagle on it.”

“What if the Sebastians run out of liquor and smarten up?”

“They won’t. When they start running low, one of them will ride to a town and buy more.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because that’s how I happened to get Eric, the youngest brother, and reduce their number to five. They sent him into Tucson alone to buy booze.”

“How did you know for certain it was him?”

“I saw all of them the day Livvy died and a thousand times after in my dreams. When I hit the trail, I got wanted posters so I could put their names with their faces.” He slanted her a steely look. “It was Eric Sebastian, no question. After we swapped lead, I hoped his older brothers would ask around in Tucson to find out who might have killed him. It would have suited me fine if they had come after me. I wouldn’t still be out here, trying to find the bastards, if they had. But they evidently never figured out who shot him.”

Eden could come up with no more arguments about remaining in the wild until her brothers found them. “How long have you known that you intended to ride around out here indefinitely?”

“Almost from the start,” he said so softly she barely caught the words.

“Say that again?”

“Almost from the start,” he repeated in a louder voice.

“So when you asked for my opinion that morning, it was all for show. Essentially, you were giving me a pat on the head.”

He didn’t deny it, and Eden felt her temper rising. Pocketing her jerky, she pushed angrily to her feet. Before stalking away, she whirled on him. “Don’t
ever
play games with me again. I’m not some empty-headed female who appreciates being flimflammed.”

“I wasn’t playing games. I just didn’t want to say anything too soon because I knew it would upset you.”

“Discovering that you’ve lied to me almost from the start upsets me far more!”

“I didn’t lie, exactly. And I wasn’t patting you on the head when I asked for your input. I was counting on your good sense to help you reach the same conclusion that I already had. It seemed better to me, doing it that way, than shoving my decision down your throat.”

So angry she was shaking, Eden strode over to her horse.
Not made of stern enough stuff to be a rancher’s wife?
And now she discovered that he’d been hoodwinking her from day one. When she grabbed the saddle blanket, Matthew tucked the map into a pocket and struggled to his feet. “I’ll take care of that. It’s heavy work.”

“A man’s work, you mean?” She elbowed her way past him to grab the saddle. “I may not have what it takes to be a rancher’s wife, Matthew Coulter, but I can sure as hell saddle a horse.”

“Look, I know you’re angry at me right now, and with good cause, but that’s no reason to risk hurting yourself. You’ve got busted ribs. That’s too heavy for you to be lifting.”

“But you can do it with a stitched-up chest? I’ve been saddling horses all my life.” In truth, one of the stable hands had often done it for her, but Eden was too mad right then to mention that. “I don’t need a big strong man to do it for me.”

“I am
not
letting you saddle that damned horse.”

He wrested the gear away from her. His commandeering manner made Eden want to kick him. She was no hothouse lily, and it hurt to know that he thought she was.

“I said I’ll do it!” she cried.

“And I’m saying you won’t.” He settled the saddle on the bay’s back and then gave her a heated look. “I’m bigger than you are. My vote carries the day.”

That cinched it. Eden stepped in close and shoved his arm to get him away from her horse. Matthew curled viselike hands over her shoulders and lifted her as if she weighed no more than a child to deposit her out of his way. She doubled her fists.

“Don’t go there,” he said evenly. “I’m saddling the damned horse, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“So help me, Matthew, don’t be high and mighty with me.”

He shot her another dark look. “I’ve seen stubborn, honey, but you take the prize.”

“As if you have room to talk?” She thought she glimpsed a grin flirting at the right corner of his mouth. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

The grin won over, and he chuckled. “I’m not laughing at you, I swear. Not only at you, at any rate. I’m laughing at both of us. Here we are, two grown adults, acting like children.” He turned toward her, resting one bent arm on the saddle seat. “If I let you do the rest, will that satisfy you?”

Eden wanted to stay furious, but his amusement was contagious. She truly had been acting like a child. She struggled not to smile, but his sheepish grin took the wind out of her sails. The next thing she knew, she was laughing with him. On some level, she knew it wasn’t really funny and that she should still be angry with him, but she giggled until she was breathless and holding her injured side. Matthew laughed just as hard as she did, a hand clamped over his tender chest.

When their mirth finally subsided, he wiped tears from his cheeks, released a shaky sigh, and asked, “Are you always so impossible when you get your tail tied in a knot?”

“Sometimes I’m even worse.”

He gave another weak chuckle, holding up a hand so she wouldn’t make him laugh again.

“Are you always so mule-headed?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“Only when I get my back up.”

“And how often does that happen?”

“Only every now and again, mostly when an empty-headed female challenges me. I’m the man, after all. I should be wearing the pants. Just because you’ve borrowed a pair doesn’t mean they fit you.”

Eden was over her snit, so she took the words as they were meant, as a teasing remark. While she tightened her horse’s belly cinch, Matthew saddled Smoky with an economy of movement. As he worked, he said, “Eden, I owe you an apology.”

Taken by surprise, she shot him an expectant look.

He ran a hand over Smoky’s mane. “I didn’t mean it when I said you aren’t made of stern enough stuff to be a rancher’s wife. You
are
, and it was a rotten thing to say.”

It wasn’t the most flowery apology that Eden had ever received, but when she searched his gaze, she knew it was heartfelt. “If you didn’t mean it, Matthew, why did you say it?”

He sighed and shoved his hat back on his dark head. Then he shifted his weight from one long leg to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “You make me feel cornered,” he confessed. “I look at you, and I want things I shouldn’t. I think things I shouldn’t. I’ve been walking one way for a long time, and now suddenly I feel like I’m at a crossroads. Does that make any sense?” He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “You yammer at me about corners in my heart, about how what happened to Livvy wasn’t my fault.”

“It
wasn’t
, Matthew.”

“There you go again, yammering at me. And those looks you give me with your heart shining in your eyes. You think I’m not tempted? That I don’t want the same things other men want? If you believe that, you’re dead wrong. I’m just not free to act on it right now. I have a score to settle, and until I’ve taken care of that, I can’t make any commitments.”

“So you took a mean shot at me to make me angry at you.”

He looked sheepish. “It seemed like a good plan at the time.” His gaze locked with hers. “You could have died yesterday morning, Eden. That cougar could have just as easily leaped on you.”

“It didn’t, though. You put yourself in harm’s way to protect me.”

“I may not be able to protect you next time. What then? I’ll be burying you—that’s what.”

In that moment, Eden realized that Matthew was coming to have feelings for her, but he was fighting it. And now she finally understood why, as she hadn’t before.

“Bad things happen, Matthew. We can’t see them coming, and there’s often nothing we can do to prevent them. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all live life to its fullest.”

“Life is a huge gamble—that’s what,” he replied. “And I always get dealt rotten hands.”

He tightened Smoky’s belly cinch and swung up onto the horse, his way of ending the conversation. Eden gazed up at him for a moment, wishing she knew something to say that might ease his mind, but there was nothing. They were in dangerous country and being pursued by conscienceless men. She couldn’t promise him that nothing bad would happen to her.

Soon they were riding again, and Eden nearly groaned at the discomfort it caused.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he said over his shoulder. “I’d take you straight home if I thought it was safe.”

Eden no longer had a home. After all that had happened, she would have to live in a town where no one knew her and lie through her teeth about her past. Women abducted by rapists and held for five days were automatically presumed to be defiled. Unmarried young ladies who spent weeks alone with a man, which might be the case for her before this was over, were considered to be compromised. The closest she might come to living near her brothers would be to reside in Denver, and right then, Denver seemed a million miles away.

“I’m fine,” she called out. “Riding in circles is starting to grow on me.”

Matthew drew rein again at midafternoon to give the horses another rest. Eden was unaccountably relieved. She was so
tired
. While he unsaddled the horses, murmuring his concerns about the possibility of their developing saddle sores, she found a spot on the grass in full sunshine, lay down, and luxuriated in the heat. It felt so lovely that she wanted to stay there for hours. Guilt nipped at her, though, and she pushed up to follow Matthew down to the creek, wanting to do her share. While the horses drank, he normally rubbed them down, and she could help with that. She knew his chest had to be hurting him.

The ground was rocky, forcing her to watch her step. As she neared the stream, she glanced up. What she saw made her heart freeze, and she jerked to a stop.
Snakes
. While the horses drank, Matthew had gone down on his belly among the rocks to drink himself. He lay perfectly still. A rattler was coiled about two feet from his bent left arm. He’d clearly heard it buzzing, knew it was close, and didn’t dare move.

Normally Eden would have reacted instantly, but that one snake wasn’t the only serpent posing a threat. Matthew and the horses were
surrounded
. She’d never seen so many rattlers in once place,
never
. To her frightened eyes, there appeared to be a hundred of them.
Impossible
. For a fraction of a second, she wondered if her sleepy mind had conjured them up. But no, they were real.

There wasn’t time to think. Eden whipped a Colt from its holster, swung into a crouch, got the snake by Matthew’s elbow in her sights, and fired. The rattler’s head blew off. And then she fanned the hammer, shooting at every slithery thing she saw.

The horses and mule went nuts. Matthew’s animals had been conditioned to gunfire and trained not to bolt at the sight of a snake. But this wasn’t just
one
rattler. Oh, God, if they were bitten, they might die. Eden had come to love both of Matthew’s critters, and the stolen bay gelding as well. She’d gotten the snake closest to Matthew, so now she turned to protect the animals. Risky business, that. Matthew hadn’t been moving when she killed the snake near him, but the geldings and Herman were. It required all her skill not to hit one of them in the leg.

After emptying all twelve rounds from her guns, she frantically started to reload, jerking bullets from her belt with hands that were amazingly steady, even though she was so afraid for Matthew she could barely think. As she shoved bullets into the cylinders, she heard his weapons going off and realized he was firing, too. As soon as she had six more bullets in a cylinder, she started shooting again, and when those ran out, she stuffed more ammunition into the gun. How many snakes had she and Matthew shot now? At the back of her mind, she still questioned her sanity. Was this real? It was only June. In the chilly climes of the high Colorado foothills, rattlers should not have been out in such numbers yet. At this elevation, even in August, their populations were scant. Where had they come from? How could this be happening?

But they were there. Unless, of course, she’d drifted off to sleep and was having a nightmare to end all nightmares. She kept shooting. Reloaded. Started firing again. When all the snakes that hadn’t been blown to smithereens began slipping away into their hiding places among the rocks, she shuddered and dropped both arms to her sides, the revolvers dangling limply from her sweat-slick hands. She stared stupidly at Matthew, who stood much as she did, limp with relief. He regarded her blankly for a long moment, and then, slowly, one of those crooked grins she had come to love so much stole across his face, creasing his lean right cheek.