Only Mine (16 page)

“I hope not,” Rafe said bluntly, “or you won’t make it over the pass. These mountains are as rough as the ones I saw in South America, and a damn sight worse than anything Australia had to offer.”

“Yet these mountains fascinate you.”

Rafe hesitated, surprised by Jessica’s insight. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. Of all the mountains I’ve seen, these are different. Taller than God and meaner than the Devil, yet there’s a beauty in the basins and long valleys…”

He made a soft, puzzled sound. “It makes me
feel like somewhere ahead there’s a cabin I’ve never seen, a woman I’ve never known, and both of them are waiting for me, filled with warmth.”

“You’re a good man, Rafael Moran,” Jessica said, her voice husky with bittersweet emotion. “I hope you find them.”

Rafe looked at Jessica with eyes that were the same color as the clouds. The sadness in her was almost tangible, as great as the weariness that made her lips pale and drawn.

A flicker of motion from the trail ahead distracted Rafe. Even as his hand wrapped around the butt of the shotgun he carried, the burnt toast color of the big mare Wolfe had bought in Canyon City condensed out of the black and white of the landscape.

“Wolfe’s coming,” Rafe said, easing his shotgun back into its saddle scabbard.

Jessica nodded and fell back into the semi-daze that gripped her whenever she let down her guard.

Silently, Rafe decided to suggest an early camp if Wolfe didn’t suggest it first. But when Wolfe rode up, he had an almost tangible aura of alertness around him. Even before he spoke, Rafe sensed that there would be no early camp.

“It’s snowing in the pass,” Wolfe said tersely. “If we don’t get through now, we’ll have to make camp until the pass opens again. It could be a week or more. Even if we went without fire, it would be dangerous.”

“A cold camp?” Rafe asked. “Are there more men ahead?”

Wolfe nodded curtly.

“Did they see you?”

“No.” Wolfe reached into his saddle bag and withdrew a box of cartridges. “Cut to the right after
you cross the stream, skirt the base of the ridge, and wait for me in the forest on the other side.”

Without warning, he snapped the box of cartridges in Rafe’s direction. When the other man caught it with a motion of his hand that was so swift that it blurred, Wolfe smiled.

“You’re Reno’s brother, all right. Fastest hands I ever saw, except maybe Cal’s.” Wolfe’s smile faded. “How are you with a long gun?”

“Better than some and a damn sight worse than you.”

“Take Jessica’s carbine. Ride with it across your saddle.”

Rafe leaned over, lifted the carbine from Jessica’s saddle scabbard, and checked over the gun with the easy, economical motions of a man doing a familiar task.

“What about you?” Rafe asked without looking up.

“There’s a knoll about a thousand feet from their camp. I can watch them and you at the same time. If they start moving, I’ll start shooting. Some of them are bound to get past, though. No way I’ll get all nine before they get to cover.”

A blond eyebrow climbed as Rafe realized that Wolfe was prepared to kill the men from ambush, if need be.

“You know those boys?” Rafe asked.

“I had words with some of them at a stage stop.”

Jessica’s breath came in audibly.

Rafe looked at her, then at Wolfe. “I see. In that case, I’ll be happy to pick off the stragglers.”

Wolfe smiled thinly. “If anyone gets past me, watch out for a man with a brown, drooping mustache. He’s wearing a gray cavalry cape and riding a black Tennessee walking horse with three white
socks. He has a hideout gun behind his belt buckle, but I wouldn’t recommend letting him get close enough to use it.”

“Friend of yours?” Rafe asked dryly.

“Never met the man. Cal killed his twin brother, Reno got the kid brother, and I got a couple of cousins, along with some other gang members.”

“Claim jumpers?” Rafe asked.

“They had it in mind. But first they took Willow. It was the last mistake those boys ever made.”

Rafe’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t give Jericho Slater an even break,” Wolfe continued. “Those Slaters make Quantril’s Raiders look like altar boys. If he finds out you’re Reno’s brother, he’ll kill you any way he can.”

“I’m an obliging sort of man,” Rafe said calmly. “If a man comes to me with dying on his mind, I do my best to help him out.”

The corner of Wolfe’s mouth lifted. “I’ll just bet you do. Give me fifteen minutes to get in position. And watch for patches of ice ahead.”

As he turned his horse, Jessica said urgently, “Wolfe.”

He reined in and looked over his shoulder.

“I…” Her voice died. She made an uncertain gesture with her hand. “Be careful.”

He nodded, lifted the reins again, and sent his horse ahead on the trail at a ground-eating trot.

Fifteen minutes later, Jessica and Rafe followed. She rode tensely in the saddle, straining to hear rifle shots. All she heard was the empty, icy howl of the wind. It plucked at her already overstretched nerves until she felt as though she must scream just to shut out the wind’s endless keening.

The minutes passed as though stretched upon a tanning rack. Jessica almost welcomed Two-Spot’s
bone-shaking trot simply as a distraction. Rafe didn’t speak. Nor did she try to speak to him.

The ridge they skirted was overgrown with a combination of spruce and fir. The trees were a green so dark it looked black. Slender, whitebarked aspen grew along ravines. Not even a hint of green edged the aspens’ graceful, ghostly branches, for spring hadn’t yet come to the high country.

In the rare pauses in the wind, the horses’ breath came out in silvery plumes. The animals were working hard and the land was rising relentlessly beneath their feet. Patches of ice gleamed sullenly beneath the recent snow, making the footing tricky.

When Rafe and Jessica rounded the ridge and crossed a small clearing to the forest beyond, Wolfe was waiting for them. Jessica’s heart lifted as she looked at Wolfe’s dark face and easy masculine power. The renewed realization of just how handsome her husband was broke over her in a wave. The trail clothes suited him. The austere mountains suited him. In his lean hands, the heavily inlaid rifle was revealed for the streamlined, no-nonsense weapon it really was.

And Wolfe was revealed for the man he really was; he had been born for this wild land rather than for the brocade and satin of civilization. Jessica understood that as surely as she understood that she loved Wolfe for what he was, that she had always loved him, and she always would.

The realization stunned her, sinking past layers of exhaustion to the raw emotion beneath.

“They didn’t see us,” Wolfe said. “Too busy drinking and playing cards. Jericho will have them
picked cleaner than a hound’s tooth before breakfast.”

“Good at cards, huh?” Rafe asked.

“He’ll do until you sit down with the Devil himself.”

Wolfe took the lead once more, followed by Two-Spot and the pack horses. Rafe waited until they were a hundred yards ahead before he let his horse follow. He had kept Jessica’s carbine, and he rode with it across his saddle, listening for any sounds from behind.

Exhaustion reclaimed Jessica’s body in a numbing gray tide. She slumped in the saddle. Staring at nothing, she endured the endless trail as it became steeper and rougher. Along the left, a snowmantled slope dropped away a few feet from the trail. Jessica didn’t notice. She was running on reflex alone, able to stay upright in the saddle but nothing more.

When Two-Step hit an icy patch and went down to his knees, she grabbed instinctively for the saddle horn, but it was too late. She was already pitching forward, beyond the reach of the curving, off-center horn. Two-Step lunged to the right, trying to regain his own balance. The sudden motion completed Jessica’s undoing. She hurtled from the sidesaddle onto the snow-covered slope and began rolling down in a flurry of skirts and flailing limbs.

The startled cry Jessica had given when her horse first went to its knees was the only warning Wolfe got. He turned sharply in the saddle just in time to see Jessica thrown head first down the slope. By the time he spun his horse on its hocks and reached Two-Spot, Jessica’s tumbling fall had been stopped by a thicket of alder. Recklessly, Wolfe spurred his
horse down the slope to the place where Jessica lay without moving.

“Jessi!”

Wolfe’s cry echoed, but there was no answer. He leaped from the saddle and ran the last few feet to Jessica, skidding to his knees beside her.

“Jessi? Are you all right?” he asked urgently.

She didn’t answer.

“Talk to me, elf,” Wolfe said, pushing snow away from Jessica’s face with fingers that showed a fine trembling. “It wasn’t that bad a fall. The snow is soft and deep, there weren’t any rocks. Jessi…”

Gentle fingers brushed snow from eyebrows and eyelashes that were like a shadow of fire, rich mahogany. They looked very dark against skin that was almost as pale as snow.

“You can’t be hurt, little one. God help me, you can’t. Damn it, Jessi.
Wake up.
”

Jessica groaned and tried to sit up. She got part way, only to be yanked flat by her braids, which were wedged beneath her own body. Too dazed to understand, she tried to sit up again, only to be brought up short once more.

Wolfe caught her before she could be yanked back down by her braids for a third time.

“Slow down, Jessi. Your hair has you on a short leash again.”

“Wolfe?” she asked raggedly. “Is it really you?”

Aquamarine eyes focused on Wolfe, and cool fingers caressed the dark planes of his cheek.

“Yes, elf. It’s really me.”

The knowledge that Jessica was truly all right went through Wolfe like a cascade of champagne, making him feel lightheaded, almost dizzy. The memory of the other time Jessica had been trapped
by her own long hair made amusement shimmer in Wolfe. He smiled widely as he helped her sit up.

“Sometimes, you’re like a kite with a long red tail that gets tangled in everything and hauls you up short.”

As Wolfe pulled Jessica’s hair free, memories and relief coursed through him. He began laughing softly and he brushed snow from her.

The sound of Wolfe’s amusement cleared Jessica’s mind like a brisk slap across her face. She tried to push away from him, but couldn’t. Despite the laughter that kept shaking Wolfe, he hauled her to her feet as casually as he would have lifted a saddle.

For Jessica, it was the final insult. Fear, anger, hurt, exhaustion, and humiliation exploded into flaming rage. She didn’t stop to think, didn’t consider, didn’t hesitate, didn’t do one thing but grab for the hunting knife Wolfe wore sheathed at his belt. The action was so unexpected that she had the knife clear of the leather before he realized it. His hand closed around her wrist with the speed of a striking snake.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Wolfe demanded.

Jessica’s mouth curled into what could only be described as a snarl. She yanked and twisted her wrist but couldn’t get free.

“Jessi! What the hell…? Did that fall knock out what little sense you had?”

Breath shuddered through Jessica. She was exhausted, frightened, cold, and pain twisted through her right ankle with every movement; but most of all, she was violently angry at the viscount’s savage, the man who took pleasure only in her failures.

“Let go of me.”

The naked fury in Jessica’s voice wiped all trace of laughter from Wolfe’s eyes and voice.

“Not until you tell me what you’re going to do with that knife,” he said.

For the space of three long breaths, Jessica looked at Wolfe without answering. Finally she glanced down at the knife in her hand as though surprised to find it. When she looked back at Wolfe, there was nothing of warmth or softness in her eyes.

“My hair,” she said flatly.

“What?”

“I’m going to cut my bloody hair.”

Black eyebrows lifted. “I think not. At the rate you’re going, you’d probably cut your own throat by mistake.”

Or cut his, and not by mistake.

But neither of them said it aloud as Wolfe pried the knife from Jessica’s fingers with an easy strength that heaped more fuel on the fires of her fury.

“You bastard,” she hissed.

He smiled thinly. “True fact, your ladyship.”

“Twice a bastard,” she corrected. “Once by birth and again by choice. You work me like a scullery maid, belittle my best efforts to be a wife, and then you laugh at my pain when I’m thrown from my horse because I’m so tired I can’t stay awake in the sidesaddle any longer. You are a bastard.”

Wolfe’s face became expressionless. “Say the word and you’re free. You know the word, your ladyship. Say it!”

A stillness came over Jessica, a drawing in of strength and will that tightened her features until they looked like finely drawn wire.

“Husband.”

The word was a hiss and Jessica’s smile was colder than snow itself.

“That’s the problem,” Wolfe said in a clipped voice. “I’m your husband but you aren’t my wife.”

“I have a solution. Go to Hell. You’ll find all the suffering there so amusing you’ll split your sides laughing and die on the spot. Then you’ll be free of me, husband.
And not before.
”

Jessica turned away and began clawing back up the steep slope. As Wolfe watched, a faint smile that had little to do with amusement curved his mouth. Unbridled fury fairly radiated from every line of Jessica’s body. He had seen her in many moods, but never like this. The delicate little aristocrat had a temper to match the glorious fire hidden in her hair.

Wolfe couldn’t help wondering if she would ever come to a man’s bed with a fraction of the passion she just had shown in rage. The thought of being the man to draw that primitive sensuality from Jessica brought a swift, elemental reaction from Wolfe’s body that shocked him.

Cursing his masculine vulnerability to a girl who wished him in Hell, Wolfe looked away from Jessica until the hard rush of urgency subsided into an uncomfortable ache. He expected little more in the way of ease. A state of semi-arousal had become so much a part of him when Jessica was nearby that he no longer thought such discomfort unusual.