The Last Renegade (40 page)

Still watching him, watching his eyes darken and his lids grow heavier, she began to stroke him. “What was it like?” she asked as she leaned closer. “What was it like when you tasted me?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes dropped to where she was holding him. Her hand stopped moving. He glanced at her, her eyes, and felt the sweet, hot caress begin again.

Raine smiled, beckoning, beguiling. Her hips lifted, rocked as if they were joined, but it was only her hand that held him
captive. She wet her lips, kissed him full on the mouth, engaged his tongue in a languid battle that exactly matched the rhythm she struck with her hand. The pulse and heat of his cock filled her palm.

She drew back slowly. Her breasts felt heavy. She rubbed her hand over them through her jacket. It wasn’t enough, not close to enough, but when he reached for her, she shook her head and denied both of them because she wanted something else, something more.

Raine inched down his legs until she could bend forward at the waist and clear his chest. She saw what she planned to do register in his eyes just as she ducked her head. The low growl was back in his throat the moment she took him into her mouth. She thought she felt that vibration against her tongue.

Her hand slipped deeper into his drawers. She manipulated him with her fingers as she suckled.

He might have cursed. She couldn’t be certain. Blood was rushing in her ears. If he did curse, it seemed entirely appropriate because she had drawn it out of him. She felt that powerful.

Kellen’s fingers slipped into her hair at the top of her braid. She didn’t mind his touch there until he applied some leverage and began to pull her back. She resisted at first. He tightened his hold, grew more insistent. Was he saying her name? She released him, but not before she flicked her tongue against the head of his penis.

She heard him curse now as he pushed her out of the way with one hand and yanked at his neckerchief with the other. Her eyes widened at the sight of his milky seed, and she continued to watch when he covered himself with the kerchief and finished spilling into it.

Kellen fell back against the tree while Raine moved to sit up on her knees. She set her palms on her thighs. Fascination warred with embarrassment, but it was an uneven battle and the former was the clear victor. She watched Kellen calmly clean and tuck himself into place and then right his clothes. He stood slowly as though he needed to make certain his legs were going to support him. They did, but it appeared to be a
narrow thing. When she thought about it, it was a lovely compliment.

He gave her a slow, thank-you-ma’am smile. There was still heat in his eyes. “I do enjoy explorin’ new territory with you, Mrs. Coltrane.”

There was no possibility that Raine would not blush. She watched him head toward the lake and eventually disappear behind an outcropping of rocks. She stood, found that her legs were perhaps only a little less wobbly than his, and walked deeper into the stand of trees to stretch them out. When she came around, Kellen was waiting for her. He’d washed out the kerchief. One damp end of it dangled from a pocket in his duster.

It made her think about what he’d said about exploring new territory. She was already warming to the idea that they might…She stopped, startled by the direction her mind was taking her. Was what she was thinking even possible? To distract herself, she bent and picked up her hat. “Tell me something else about you that I don’t know,” she said.

“Later. What there is to tell you isn’t about me.” Kellen lifted his thumb over his shoulder and pointed behind him to the lake. “We have company.”

Raine stepped to the side to see past him. “Company?” She came up on tiptoe, craned her neck, but couldn’t see anything through the trees. “Who?”

“Mr. Petit. Mr. Reasoner. And if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Jones is with them.”

“All three of them?” She frowned. Her eyes narrowed on Kellen. “When we dismounted, you said we’d have some cover here. You hid the horses. Did you know they were following us?”

“No. I thought Jones might—that’s why I wanted the cover. He knows something about this place, wanted to come out here, but I told him I wouldn’t be his guide. I suppose Petit and Reasoner were willing.”

“Why don’t you want them to know we’re here?”

“Because I would rather watch than be watched.”

Raine was not entirely satisfied with his answer but did not
press for more. Kellen was already turning away. She picked up the carbine and followed him, staying behind the tree line and well away from the lakeshore. She had occasional glimpses of Reasoner, Petit, and Jones on the far side of the lake as they picked their way over rocks and around large, spreading juniper shrubs. Raine took Kellen’s hand when he offered it. They climbed into a niche made by a pair of boulders and a gnarled, twisted limber pine that shouldn’t have been able to grow or thrive in the narrow opening but somehow had managed to do both.

Raine squeezed into a relatively comfortable position on the incline of one of the boulders. Kellen found a place on the other. They had a good view of the lake as seen from between the boulders and a better one when they raised their heads a few degrees above them. The pine offered additional shelter although its boughs were set widely apart and only sparsely covered with needles. When the wind whistled over their heads, the pine tree swayed and small sprays of needles danced in the air.

“They’re stopping,” said Raine. She watched Mr. Reasoner pull up his horse after Mr. Petit did the same. Jones stayed in the saddle while the other men dismounted and began to take photographic equipment from the packhorse that trailed them. “It doesn’t seem that Mr. Jones is interested in helping.”

“I think he’s directing them,” Kellen told her. “Look at how he’s pointing around. He’s telling them where to set up the equipment and what he wants the camera to see.”

“I wish we were closer. I’d enjoy a look at Mr. Reasoner’s face. He always strikes me as someone better at giving orders than getting them.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He’s so very particular. About his room, his tea, the placement of his silverware at the table. He’s the only guest I’ve had that came with more trunks than you.”

“Really? How many?”

She held up three fingers. “One is half the size of the other two, but he has so many clothes Emily used to complain that he should have traveled with his valet. He was always sending
her out with laundry for the Taylors to take in and usually sending her back at least once, sometimes twice, because he was dissatisfied with the care his clothes received. Apparently Mrs. Taylor frequently asked Emily when Mr. Reasoner was leaving, and even Emily, who once told me Mr. Reasoner’s accent was delicious, was beginning to entertain notions of pouring a piping hot cuppa tea in his lap.”

Still watching the far side of the lake, Kellen was nevertheless moved to smile. “Emily flirted with him.”

“Of course she did. She couldn’t help herself.”

“That’s what Jones said about her.”

“What?”

“Just what you said. That she couldn’t help herself.”

Raine bristled. She watched Jones continue to direct his guides. “Well, I don’t know that I like it coming from him. He would not have said it kindly. Government toady. Look at him. He’s probably using his sprained ankle as an excuse for not getting down to help them. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a man so passionate about an injury. The night it happened? I wasn’t certain I believed that he hurt himself.”

Kellen darted a glance at Raine. “You never told me that.”

“I suppose because he changed my mind about it.”

“He’s been on the receiving end of a lot of attention because of it. Sue. Renee. Cecilia. They all accommodate him. So do you. Bath salts. Dining in his room. Making sure he has a stool for his foot when he visits the saloon.”

“I did not suggest that we give the man a stool. That was Renee.” When she caught the defensiveness in her tone, she mocked herself with a smile. “I take your point. Frankly, it was easier to accommodate him than have him underfoot. We could give him what he wanted and forget about him for a time.”

Kellen nodded. Across the lake, Petit was adjusting the legs on the tripod while Reasoner steadied the camera. Jones was directing them to some point along the northern shoreline.

“What is it that they want to see?” asked Raine. She twisted in place but could not gain the same perspective north as the camera.

“I don’t know. I don’t have a surveyor’s eye. It’s probably nothing that would interest us.”

Raine sighed, settled back. She saw Jones reach into the scabbard attached to his saddle, but instead of pulling out a rifle, he had a long roll of paper. “A map?” she asked.

“That’s my guess.” He watched as Jones unrolled the paper, studied it, and gestured at the camera. “I suppose he’s making some sort of photographic survey that will help make a new map more accurate.”

Raine looked over at him. “You have no idea what he’s doing, do you?”

“None.”

She laughed, shaking her head.

Kellen put a finger to his lips. “You would be surprised how far your voice will carry over water. We’re sitting in a basin anyway.”

“I can’t hear them,” she whispered.

He gave her a wry look.

“Oh. Well, I’ll be quiet now.”

Raine kept her word. She watched the trio work for the next fifteen minutes without making a sound. She did not speak for another half hour after that, but it was sleep that supported her silence.

Kellen placed one hand over Raine’s mouth and nudged her shoulder with the other. She woke abruptly, eyes wide, startled by the leather glove against her lips. He shushed her, and when he knew she understood, he removed his hands.

Raine looked between the rock faces. She had to adjust her position because the men had moved. Her neck supported her head at an awkward angle until she got one hand under her chin. She squinted, uncertain that what she was seeing was not a sleepy double image.

There were four men now. Jones was still on horseback, Reasoner and Petit were resetting the camera on a higher slope, and the mounted newcomer was waving an arm at all three of them.

“Who is that?” asked Raine.

“That’s what I wanted you to tell me. Is it Matt Sharp?”

She used a thumb and forefinger to rub her eyes and clear the sandman’s grit. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep.” She peered through the opening again. “Not Matt. He’s broader in the shoulders. Sits heavier on his horse. That man sits light and high.”

“Tall in the saddle.”

“Exactly. He’s a cowboy. Charlie Patterson once explained to me how cowboys learn to ride tall so they don’t put too much pressure on the horse’s back. It spares their mounts on the long rides. Those men love their animals.”

“Do you recognize the horse?”

“No,” she said dryly. “I know Phantom, same as Rabbit and Finn. He needs to turn more in our direction. The man, I mean, not the horse. I can barely make out his profile under his hat.”

“He’s wearing a white one.”

“Yes. He’s a
Wyoming
cowboy.”

“One of the Davis brothers? It’s odd, but I have the sense that I should know him.”

The same sense niggled at Raine, but then she knew everyone. “Jem and his brothers are thicker than that man. It troubles me that I can say who it isn’t but can’t tell you who it—” Her thoughts froze along with her speech. What did not freeze was her ability to move. She was tugging on the carbine to get it into position when Kellen wrenched it out of her hands.

Kellen swore sharply although his voice never rose above a rough, gravelly whisper. He put the Springfield on the other side of him out of her reach, and when she made a grab for it, he slapped her hand out of the way. “Who the hell do you think you’re going to shoot at this distance?”

“Him! I’m going to shoot him!”

The wild fury in her eyes slammed into Kellen like a physical blow. Her knowledge suddenly became his. “Jesus, Raine. I’m sorry. You can’t.” He grabbed both her wrists when she flailed at him. She began slipping into the crevice between the rocks. “Stop! You’re going to trap yourself. Raine! Stop fighting me.”

She stopped, let herself go limp. Her breath came raggedly in small bursts. She closed her eyes. Tears burned at the back of them. More clogged her throat. She had always wondered
what she would do if she saw him again. And now she knew. Nothing.

“Let me go,” she said.

Kellen released her and let her struggle out of the niche on her own. She had to unlace her boot before she could free her wedged foot. He snagged the boot and gave it to her.

“That’s Isaac Burdick, isn’t it?”

Raine nodded. “I don’t understand why I didn’t recognize him right away. I was so sure I would always know him.” She jammed her foot into her short boot and began lacing it. “Take the carbine. I’ve seen you shoot. You could hit him.”

“Not at this range, and probably not even if we were closer. Not with a weapon I’ve never fired before. God, Raine. Did you even think before you reached for your weapon? How do you imagine we’d get out of here without being seen?”

She did not try to defend herself. She had neither thought nor imagined, and he knew it. Raine lay back down, turned over on her stomach, and found the position that would give her the best view. A few moments later, Kellen joined her. The carbine was still out of her reach.

“It’s been several years since you’ve seen him,” Kellen said.

“Four,” said Raine. “Four years since the trial.” As she was speaking, Isaac Burdick removed his hat, slapped it once against his thigh as though emphasizing a point, and reset it on his head, covering up the thick, black hair that was the hallmark of every Burdick.

Kellen observed the sharp profile for as long as the hat was gone and studied the seat and gestures of the man once the hat was returned to his head. He understood the sense of familiarity that he’d experienced.

“He looks like his brothers.”

Raine nodded. “He favors Eli.”

Occasionally Kellen could hear raised voices but none of the words. “He’s not happy. Can you tell who is arguing with him?”

“I think they all are.”