Warrior (11 page)

“If you’re not Sleeping Beauty,” he said in a deep voice, “you must be Little Red Riding Hood. Wakeup, Red.”

Long, sable eyelashes stirred. Eyes that were green and gold and blue and gray, the color of every season, looked up at Nevada.

“You don’t look like my grandmother.”

“That’s because I’m the wolf.”

“Goody,” Eden sighed, smiling and rubbing her cheek against Nevada’s bearded jaw. “I’ve always had a weakness for furry beasts.”

“The weakness is in your head,” he retorted, his voice both hard and deep. He forced himself to turn away from the vulnerable spot just behind Eden’s ear. “Furry beasts always have sharp teeth to use on tempting little morsels like you.”

“Sounds exciting,” she said, yawning. Then she made a sound of contentment and let her weight rest fully against Nevada. “Know something? You’re much more comfortable than my mattress.”

Eden smiled dreamily and curled more deeply into Nevada’s lap. As she moved against him, the sleeping bag, extra blankets and coat slid off her shoulders, revealing the firm, curving lines of her breasts against the deep red of her ski underwear. When the chilly air seeped through red cloth, her nipples tightened.

Nevada’s heartbeat hesitated for an instant before it resumed at a harder, quicker rate.

“Damn it, Eden, sit up.”

“Sheesh

what a grouch.”

Eden’s attempts to sit up involved bracing herself against Nevada. Fever and sleepiness made her clumsy. Her hands slipped and fumbled down the length of his torso before coming to rest on his hard thighs. Even harder male flesh rose insistently only a fraction of an inch away from her right hand.

Nevada closed his eyes and told himself he was glad that Eden’s hand hadn’t come to rest a fraction of an inch to the left. He didn’t believe that lie, either.

Her slim fingers braced themselves on the clenched power of Nevada’s thighs, but he sensed that Eden’s balance was still uncertain, that her hands were sliding

Abruptly Eden felt herself being lifted off Nevada’s lap. Strong hands wrapped the shearling coat firmly around her and buttoned it, imprisoning her arms against her body.

“Warm enough?” Nevada asked through his teeth.

She nodded.

“Good.” He grabbed the mug of warm soup. “Open your mouth.”

She opened her mouth.

“Drink.”

She drank, swallowed, licked her lips and said, “Nevada, what’s wrong?”

“Drink.”

Silently Eden drank from the mug that Nevada was holding against her mouth. When she finished the soup, she tried to lick the creamy mustache from her upper lip, couldn’t reach all of it, and tried again.

Nevada closed his eyes and said something harsh beneath his breath.

“So I’m a little messy,” Eden muttered. “What do you expect? I’m not used to being fed. If you’ll let me out of this straitjacket I’ll feed myself.”

Nevada came to his feet in a tightly coordinated rush, stalked to the fire, ladled out another mug of soup and went back to Eden. His jacket was so big on her that she had managed to get her arms through the sleeves even though she was buttoned inside.

And now she was watching him with eyes whose color shifted at each leap of flame. She hadn’t a third of his strength, she wasn’t two-thirds of his weight, yet she was utterly calm. She trusted him with an unshakable certainty that was as arousing as it was infuriating.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Nevada asked tightly.

“Get what?”

“You’re so damned vulnerable,” he said, “and too damned sexy. I mean it, Eden. Don’t trust me.”

She started to speak, looked at his bleak eyes, and shivered. But it wasn’t fear that made her tremble, nor was it cold. It was the realization that Nevada was watching her the way a wild animal watches a winter campfire, both lured by and deeply wary of the dancing warmth, easing closer and closer only to snarl and spring back and circle once more, watching what it wants but is too wild and wary to take, watching her with eyes as cold as winter itself.

“I can no more help trusting you than you can help wanting me,” Eden said finally. “I’m not nearly as fragile as you seem to think. And

and you must know that I want to touch you, too, Nevada. I’m not very good at hiding how I feel.”

Eden watched the centers of Nevada’s eyes expand, saw the sudden rush of blood in the pulse beating rapidly at his temple, and cleared her throat.

“May I have some more soup, please?” she asked in a trembling voice. “It’s

it’s very good.” With great care Nevada placed the mug in Eden’s outstretched hand, stood up and walked out of the cabin.

<< 8 >>

The first red-gold tint of dawn had barely seeped through the cabin window when Baby scratched at the door, looked toward Eden’s sleeping bag, then pawed the door again.

“Lord, Baby,” Eden muttered, sitting up, yawning. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

Baby whined.

“Stay put,” said a deep voice. “I’ll let him out.”

Eden looked over at the mound of sleeping bag and blankets that was Nevada. “I’m already up. Besides, I’ve done nothing but lie around since you got here three days ago.” She rubbed her eyes and stretched again. “I’m like Baby – ready to prowl.”

Nevada didn’t bother to argue. He came out of the sleeping bag and got to his feet in an uninterrupted motion, took two long strides and opened the cabin door. Baby flowed outside like a shadow left over from the vanishing night. Nevada shut the door and turned back toward his sleeping bag.

Eden’s breath came in with an audible rush when she opened her eyes once more. Nevada wore only black jeans, and all but one of the steel buttons were undone. Hints of golden light caressed him like a lover, emphasizing the shift and coil of powerful muscles beneath smooth skin. Black hair glowed and licked over his torso like dark flames. An odd feeling lanced through Eden, a hunger and a yearning that was unlike anything she had ever experienced.

When Nevada reached for his black flannel shirt and began putting it on, Eden wanted to protest. She also wanted to run her hands over Nevada, to test the strength and resilience of his muscles, to savor all the textures of his midnight hair with her palms and fingertips, to taste his lips, his cheeks, his eyelashes, his shoulders, to trace every velvet shadow on his body with the tip of her tongue

“Eden? Are you all right?” Nevada stared into the shadows, wondering at the cause of Eden’s unnatural stillness.

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“You don’t sound like it,” he said as he rolled up his sleeves. “How does your chest feel? Still tight?”

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t be if you don’t stay warm.” Nevada crossed the cabin, knelt, and stuffed Eden back under the mound of covers. “You’re shivering. Damn it, are you trying to get pneumonia?”

Eden shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’m a long way from pneumonia.”

“I knew you believed in fairy tales,” he muttered, pushing the blankets up to Eden’s chin. “Pneumonia is unpredictable. One minute you’ve got the flu or a cold and the next minute, bang, you’re fighting for your life.”

Memories sleeted through Eden, ripping away everything but the past. She tried to speak but had no voice. She swallowed and tried again.

“I know about pneumonia.”

The resonances of certainty, grief and acceptance in Eden’s voice made Nevada’s hands pause over her blankets. He looked at her intently. In the increasing light of dawn her eyes were wide, shimmering with tears, unblinking, focused on something only she could see.

He caught a tear on his fingertip. It burned against his skin like a molten diamond.

“Eden,” he said softly.

She let out her breath in a ragged sigh and blinked away the tears. “It’s all right. It’s just that sometimes

sometimes the memories

are stronger than other times.”

“Yes,” he said simply. “Sometimes they are.”

Hazel eyes focused on Nevada. Eden smiled despite the traces of tears still shining on her eyelashes.

“The memories aren’t sad, not completely,” she said. “Just

bittersweet. Aurora was ten months old, and alive the way only a healthy baby can be. Tears and laughter, going full tilt one minute and sound asleep the next. Sweet little tornado. Her laughter made me think of bright orange poppies.”

Eden smiled, remembering, and her smile was as real as her tears had been. Nevada’s throat tightened around emotions he had not permitted himself to feel for too many years.

“How long ago,” he asked, his voice low.

“Six years. Early in spring. I was sixteen, too old to be a child and not old enough to be anything else,” Eden said, looking past Nevada, remembering another time, another place. “My sister, Aurora, was almost one. She got sick the way babies do, sniffles and short temper and endless fussing. Then she got an ear infection, then another cold, another infection, a cough, and each time she fussed less.”

Eden hesitated before continuing in a low voice. “A late storm came down out of the Arctic, the temperature dropped seventy degrees and Aurora’s breathing changed. We managed to get out on the radio to ask for help, but nothing could fly in that storm. All we could do was keep Aurora warm and pray that the storm broke in time.”

Nevada closed his eyes for a moment, understanding all too well the feelings of helplessness and pain that Eden’s family had endured. He had seen too many shattered families, shattered villages, shattered lands.

“I was the only one who didn’t have a cold,” Eden continued in a low voice, “so Aurora was sleeping with me. I was holding her when she died. I held her

for a long time.”

The only sound was that of Nevada’s big hands smoothing the blankets around Eden’s shoulders as he watched her with an intensity that was almost tangible. He had no doubt of the depth and power of her grief. He could feel it beating silently around him, black velvet wings of sorrow and loss.

But he also had seen Eden smile, heard her laugh – and that, too, was genuine. Her joy in life was vivid and complex, generous and oddly serene. That was what had drawn him instantly to her – his absolute certainty that life was a hot golden cataract flowing through Eden, a fire that would burn against any darkness, any ice, any night.

Eden still smiled, although she knew that life was cruel and unpredictable, knew that it had betrayed joy and trust, leaving her to hold a dying child in her arms. She was even able to laugh.

“The ring on your necklace. It belonged to Aurora.”

There was no question in Nevada’s deep voice, but Eden answered anyway.

“Yes.”

“Why.”

Again it was not a question, not quite a plea, not fully a demand. Again Eden softly answered.

“I wear Aurora’s ring to remind myself that love is never wasted, never futile.”

Something stirred deep within Nevada, a part of him so long hidden that he believed it had died. The pain that came was shocking, making it impossible to breathe, much less to speak.

And he wanted to speak. He wanted to argue with Eden. He wanted it so fiercely that his hands clenched on the blankets. Yet he could find no words to counter Eden’s certainty, no words to shake her serenity, nothing to equal her laughter; only a bleak, incoherent cry clawing at his soul, a cry of rage or fear or hope

or a wrenching blend of all three.

In a rush of barely controlled power, Nevada stood up and turned away from Eden. Silently she watched while he stirred the banked fire into life with a few harsh strokes, added wood, and walked to the sink. He dipped water from the bucket, primed the pump, and worked the long iron handle as savagely as though he were killing snakes. Water sped up from the hidden well and leaped out of the pump in a rushing crystal stream.

He filled three buckets, a kettle and the coffeepot before he released the pump handle. Buckets and kettle went to the hearth. The coffeepot went on the single-burner backpacking stove Eden had brought. Each move Nevada made was controlled, graceful despite the anger radiating from him like beat from the hearth.

Eden watched Nevada, reminded of the first cougar she had ever seen. It had been caged, and wild within that cage, raking with unsheathed claws at everything that came near.

What is it, Nevada? What did I say to make you so angry?

The question was asked only in the silence of Eden’s mind, for she knew Nevada wouldn’t answer if she spoke aloud.

After a few minutes Eden groped around in her sleeping bag, found her clothes, and dressed within the cocoon of blankets and bag. Even with pre-warmed jeans and a turtleneck sweater, she shivered when she crawled out into the cold air of the cabin. She pushed her stockinged feet into her fleece-lined moccasins, pulled on her jacket and went outside.

The soft closing of the door was like a gunshot in the taut silence of the cabin. Nevada put one more piece of firewood on the flames and sat on his heels in front of the hearth, watching the renewed leap of fire with bleak green eyes. But it wasn’t the flames he was seeing. It was Eden’s tears, Eden’s smile, Eden’s lips, Eden’s eyes admiring him, wanting him.

Nevada spread his hands before the fire, saw their fine trembling, and balled his fingers into fists. He wanted Eden. He wanted her until he shook with it.

A raw word tore through the silence.

“Other than that, how do you feel?” Eden asked dryly, closing the door behind her.

Nevada spun around and came to his feet with shocking speed, his body poised for defense or attack. He hadn’t heard Eden open the door.

He hadn’t heard her.

“I must be losing my edge,” Nevada said, lowering his hands.

She shrugged and hung her jacket on a nearby nail. “More likely your subconscious figured out I’m no threat to you, so why spend energy staying on guard?”

“No threat,” Nevada repeated. Abruptly he had an impulse to laugh that was more shocking to him than the fact that he had been too caught up in his own thoughts to hear the cabin door opening behind him. “Lady, the only threat that matters is the one you don’t see coming. That’s the one that gets you.”

“I’m not big enough to ‘get’ you.” Eden looked past Nevada. “Besides, you can read my mind.”