When The Heart Beckons (12 page)

“Is it serious?” she asked suddenly, forcing
her eyes open despite her weariness.

“Only a scratch. The bullet just nicked you.
You’ll live.”

He didn’t sound as if he cared particularly
one way or another, but he had obviously bandaged it for her and
brought her back here to the clearing. He’d covered her with his
blanket, and let her sleep in his bedroll. Hmmm. Mr. Steele, she
thought, I think I’m beginning to see right through you.

Annabel regarded his grim countenance for a
moment in silence. “How can I thank you? You’ve saved my life today
several times over ...”

“Don’t thank me too quickly. I’m not
finished with you, yet, Miss Brannigan. Not by a long shot.”

The clearing was dark, but for the fragile
amber glow of a small campfire. They were alone here in the shadow
of the Mogollons, camped on a tiny clearing beneath the towering
pine-forested rim, yet she was not afraid—either of the treacherous
black canyons and ravines all around, of the animals rustling
through the darkness beyond the fire—or of him.

“I suppose you’re going to shout at me,” she
sighed.

“Shout at you?” he growled. “Is that all you
think I’m going to do?” He leaned closer, his eyes flaring with
anger. The menacing twist had returned to his lips. “After I warned
you not to follow me? I told you I’d make you sorry if I ever
caught you trailing me again ... and now ... what’s wrong?”

Annabel closed her eyes quickly then opened
then, giving her head a tiny shake. “Nothing. It hurts, that’s
all.”

He swore under his breath, then his lips
tightened. “Serves you right. If you’d stayed in Eagle Gulch you’d
be safe and sound and—”

“I am safe and sound, Mr. Steele,” Annabel
interrupted him, speaking quietly. Her eyes met his in the
firelight. “I’m with you.”

He made an incoherent sound, stood up, and
wheeled away from her. Annabel watched his broad, rigid back as he
paused beside the rock where Curtis had kept her under guard.

“Mr. Steele,” she whispered after a
moment.

He turned back and stared at her, lying in
his bedroll, only a blanket and her camisole covering the smooth
naked skin, with tiny wisps of bright coppery hair curling
rebelliously about her cheeks and forehead, finally coming undone
from those relentless pins of hers. He wondered what she would look
like with her hair all loose and flowing, and why she always wore
it so tightly bound.

“Mr. Steele,” she repeated, her voice so
soft it made something ache deep inside him.

“
What
?” he demanded, covering the
effect she was having on him with the curtness of his tone.

“Is there anything to eat?” Annabel gave him
a bemused smile. “It seems that I’m starving. And thirsty. Maybe
it’s strange to be hungry after being shot, but I haven’t eaten
much all day. I was too busy trying to keep up with you ... er,
maybe we’d best not talk about that.”

“We are going to talk about it. Right
now.”

Annabel watched him stride back toward her.
His face was shadowed by firelight, yet she could see the tension
in it. And the anger. But she wasn’t afraid of him any longer. At
least, not in the way she had been. Though a little apprehensive
quiver did go through her as he crouched beside her again and
peered down at her, she wasn’t afraid he would hurt her. It was a
different kind of fear, something to do with the spreading warmth
inside her, the odd rapid beating of her heart—but she didn’t allow
herself to explore the strangeness of this any further ...

“Tell me the truth, Miss Brannigan.”

“Annabel.”

“Miss Brannigan,” he repeated deliberately.
His voice was even and controlled. “You were following me.”

He was so close she could see the long black
lashes of his glinting eyes, see the rhythmic rise and fall of his
broad chest beneath his black silk shirt. She found herself staring
at his hard, sensual mouth. “Admit it, Miss Brannigan. Now.”

Well, there was no point in denying the
obvious. She nodded.

“Yes, Mr. Steele, I was following you.”

“Against my direct orders.”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re looking for Brett
McCallum.”

Her mouth fell open. “How ... how did you
...”

He captured her chin in his hand and held
her head still, forcing her to stare directly into his eyes. He was
studying her face carefully. “Just answer the question.”

“Ye-es.” Annabel was flabbergasted. And
stunned by the heat of his touch. She couldn’t escape those
brutally appraising eyes, couldn’t seem to move a single muscle.
All she could do was wait for him to go on, wondering all the while
how much he knew and how he’d learned it. But he didn’t speak—he
only stared at her piercingly, as if trying to read the very depths
of her mind. She had time to study him in turn, to note the
weariness that stamped his rough, handsome face, something she
hadn’t noted earlier. She was beginning to understand something
important about Roy Steele. Whatever he might be, he was no
cold-blooded killer. But why he was after Brett remained a mystery
to her.

Ask him. Just ask him.

She swallowed. “Mr. Steele, why are
you
searching for Brett McCallum?”

“I’m asking the questions, Miss
Brannigan.”

“So am I,” she pointed out.

For the first time since she’d met him, he
actually smiled at her. A real smile, not that coldly mocking
grimace she’d seen before. He let go of her and rocked back on his
heels.

“You are the damnest woman,” he muttered,
half to himself.

It wasn’t exactly flattery. She’d heard many
more flowery comments than that from the three suitors who’d asked
for her hand in marriage, but coming from Roy Steele, it almost
sounded like poetry.

Suddenly, he reached down beneath her
shoulders and lifted her so that she was gathered close against
him. He was so strong, she realized, he could probably snap her in
two, but his arms merely glided around her back, supporting her.
She winced when the movement, careful as he did it, gave a slight
jolt to her shoulder, but then she was swiftly settled in the
hardness of his arms, still wrapped in the blanket, a strangely
safe, comfortable feeling enveloping her. He smelled nicely of pine
and sage. She was unable to ignore either the sheer male warmth or
the solid muscular strength of him. She felt like a cradled doll.
It was a dizzying, totally new sensation. His face was only inches
from hers, and in the moonlight she could discern the rough stubble
of a day’s growth of beard along his jaw and chin, and the taut
lines around his eyes, which only seemed to add to his rugged
handsomeness.

Had she ever seen a more compellingly
attractive man? She doubted it. Even Brett, kind, sweet, laughing
Brett with his straight brown hair and boyishly appealing features,
his effortless charm and air of dashing gaiety, had never had quite
such a powerful effect on her. She wondered what it would feel like
to stroke Roy Steele’s thick coal-black hair or to trace a
fingertip along the harsh planes and angles of his face. She found
herself gazing in fascination once more at his sarcastically
curled, sensual mouth, then her glance flitted upward to meet the
keen blackness of those hawklike eyes. She’d never before looked
into such mesmerizing, glinting eyes.

A shiver coursed through her, but not from
the cold.

She felt warm—no. Hot. Almost as strangely
hot and tingly as she’d felt when she’d been shot.

“Miss Brannigan,” he said very low, his
voice growling over the hiss of twigs in the campfire, “if you want
to eat supper tonight—or any night in the future—you’ll answer my
questions. All of them. Because I’m giving you nothing—no food, no
coffee, no answers, until you’ve explained yourself to me. Got
that?”

“It’s rather more than clear,” she murmured
back, peeping up at him without resentment.

“So start talking. I want to hear exactly
why you’re looking for Brett McCallum—the truth. And I want to hear
it now.”

There was really nothing to do but comply.
Annabel’s brain raced to concoct exactly what she would say, but it
was difficult to think when he was close to her like this, when the
warm male scent of him enveloped her and tantalized her senses,
when they were so alone here in this rock-walled clearing that she
could almost imagine there was no one else alive in the whole
world—only the two of them stranded in these vast, dark, dangerous
Mogollons, locked together at the crown of the most ruggedly
beautiful and awesome spot on earth.

But she did her best.

She reached the swift conclusion that she
would tell him the truth—or at least, the
almost
truth.

“I’m Brett’s fiancée,” she said quickly,
aware of how still he had gone, how his eyes watched her with a
deep black intensity made all the more menacing because his muscles
all tightened reflexively at the same moment.

“I’m very worried about him ... and that’s
why I’m trying to find him. He ran away, and we heard ... his
father and I ... that a man named Red Cobb is out to kill him and I
must find him first and bring him safely home.” She moistened her
lips. “Your turn.”

Her words had had no visible effect on him
except one. His eyes became hard glinting obsidians, devoid of all
warmth and feeling. Annabel felt a rush of fear at the utter
coldness of them. Maybe she’d been wrong in thinking this man was
not as harsh as he appeared, maybe he would strangle her right now
without another word ...

“Ross McCallum sent you to find his
son?”

There was so much cold fury in his words
that she felt her heart start to hammer. “Not ... exactly. He ...
doesn’t know ... he’s ill and I ... came on my own.”

He released her and rocked back on his
heels, that cool deadliness seemingly stamped in stone upon his
granite features.

“Ill?”

“His heart is not strong.”

If possible, his expression turned even
icier. “Go on.”

“Brett means more to me than anyone else in
the world. I’ve known him nearly all my life—we grew up together.
The only family I’ve ever had is gone—my mother died when I was a
child and my aunt passed on three years ago ... and now I’m afraid
of losing Brett too.” The words rushed out of her all on their own,
caught in the floodtide of her suddenly unlocked emotions. “I’ve
nothing to lose, Mr. Steele, in hunting for him. He’s all I want
... all I’ve ever wanted, really, and I must find him and see if he
...”

She broke off in consternation. She’d been
about to say “see if he could ever love me,” but she swallowed the
words back and said instead: “and see if he can explain what has
made him run off like this. We were planning to be married, but
something terrible must have happened to make him leave ...”

Steele shook his head in amazement and
pulled her close once again. “What in hell ever made you think you
could find him?”

Annabel bristled. “Let me remind you that
I’m very close to finding him, Mr. Steele.” Her eyes flashed. “As
close as you are.”

“You’re lucky, lady. Damn lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.”

“You might have died out here in these
canyons. Hell, you would have died—and worse—before those varmints
I shot got through with you. If I hadn’t come back ...”

“But you did, Mr. Steele.” Annabel’s voice
was soft over the hissing fire. She shifted slightly in his arms,
inadvertently brushing her breasts against his chest. She felt the
quick inhale of his breath.
So, Mr. Gunfighter No-Feelings
Steele, you’re not as immune to human emotion as you pretend to
be.
The knowledge gave her confidence and made her smile at
him as she lay within the circle of his arms. “Now it’s my turn to
ask a question,” she said firmly. “I’ve already figured out that
your showing up here was no accident—you lost me on purpose in the
Mogollons, and then you came back for me just as purposefully.
Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“You thought I wouldn’t get out from under
the rim alive, and you didn’t want my death on your
conscience.”

“I’m a gunfighter, Miss Brannigan,” he told
her dryly, his mouth twisting into a sneer. “I don’t have a
conscience.”

But Annabel was no longer fooled. “You’re
lying, Mr. Steele. I think there is much more to you than you care
to let on to the world. I think you have a conscience and a soul
and a sense of honor. And ...”

He released her and set her back on the
bedroll with one swift motion that sent a tiny shock of pain
throbbing through her shoulder. He gave no sign of noticing her
sudden wince. “You’re loco, lady.” In one fluid movement, he was
standing, pushing his hat back on his head. “Completely loco. Now
stay put and I’ll fix you some grub.”

He stalked away and grabbed up a coffeepot
and tin cup. Annabel closed her eyes, trying not to think about the
ache in her shoulder. She concentrated instead on pondering how
she’d handled Steele’s questions.

All in all, not bad, she decided. She
couldn’t help but feel satisfied with the story she’d told. It was
close enough to the truth to be entirely believable. And, she
thought, far better that he should think she was Brett’s fiancée
than an inept private investigator. And he would think she was
inept if he knew the truth—because up until now she hadn’t managed
to be discreet—not discreet enough, anyway. But she was going to
get better at this, she promised herself—it just might take a
little time and practice.

What disturbed her was that Steele still
hadn’t told her anything about why
he
was searching for
Brett. But he would, Annabel vowed to herself. Before this night
was over, she would know exactly what kind of a problem she was
dealing with.

Moments later, Steele presented her with a
ration of beef jerky, some hardtack biscuits, and a cup of steaming
black coffee.