Winter's Touch (21 page)

Something hot to eat and drink would warm them. He was about to put down the blankets and start a pot of coffee, but she beat him to it, using the water from the canteen.

Her braids left damp spots where they lay against the shirt, one in front, across her breast, and one down the back. “We need to dry your hair.”

She put a hand to the braid draped across her breast. “Yes.” With fumbling fingers, she untied the rawhide laces holding the ends of the braid together. Then, with a neat, practiced roll of her shoulders, she flipped the other braid forward and freed it. She reached to thread her fingers through one braid to unravel it.

Carson wanted to stop her. He wanted to do it himself. Wanted to feel those long, silky strands caress the sensitive skin between his fingers. But his hands were still so numb that he doubted he would feel much of anything, and she could get the braids undone easier and faster.

Someday, he vowed silently. Someday she would let him loosen her braids and run his fingers through her hair. Someday she would welcome it.

He looked around the room to make sure he hadn’t left something undone. If there was, he had to do it now. Once he sat down, he knew he wouldn’t be getting back up anytime soon.

The door. The latch held it shut, but he crossed behind Winter Fawn and put the bar down. Not that he thought for a minute anyone else was out there.

“One good thing,” he said more to himself than to Winter Fawn. “Nobody can track us in this weather.”

He stood behind Winter Fawn and used one of the blankets to blot the moisture from her hair. She swayed against him.

“Here.” He sat on the tarp and took her hand to pull her down beside him. He tucked the second blanket around her bare legs. “That’s better.”

With the fire inching back the cold, Carson continued blotting her hair until it was nearly dry. Feeling started returning to his fingers, sending sharp needles of pain through them. But he could feel now. Dropping the blanket, he smoothed her hair with this hands, lifted it, fanned it out. Threaded his fingers through it. The braids had left waves and crinkles all through the thick mass. “So beautiful,” he murmured.

Her shoulders quivered as another shiver of cold struck her. He knew the feeling. He was still so cold that his skin wouldn’t even raise gooseflesh.

“Until the buffalo robe dries,” he told her, “we’re going to have to share these blankets to get warm.”

She gave him a wry smile. “We had to share last night, even with the buffalo robe. I’m not sure I’ll ever be warm again.”

“I know the feeling, but coffee will help. Food, too.”

At least this time they didn’t have hurry to put out the fire to keep from being seen by their pursuers. Nor did they need to keep the fire small. Carson added more wood. After he got the bacon on, he mixed up a batch of biscuits.

“How is your head?” Winter Fawn asked.

Carson paused. “To tell the truth, I’d forgotten about it. I guess it’s just so cold I can’t feel it.”

“It does not hurt?”

“It hasn’t hurt since you cleaned it last night.”

She smiled and ducked her head.

By the time they had eaten their fill and finished off the coffee, Winter Fawn, he noticed, was barely able to keep her eyes open. “Come here.” Laying down behind her so that she was closest to the fire, he pulled her into his arms, enfolding her against his chest, with the blankets covering them both.

Slowly their shivering eased, their teeth stopped chattering. “Better?” he whispered, his arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on the top of her head.

She didn’t answer.

Carson raised his head and looked down at her. Light and shadows danced across her profile. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and regular. She was asleep.

Unable to stop himself, unwilling to even try, Carson brushed his lips across her cheek. Satiny soft. Warm. Sweet. Closing his eyes, he lay back down and let himself follow her into sleep.

Carson was dreaming. He was asleep and dreaming. How else could he explain the presence of a soft, warm woman in his arms? The bare flesh of a shapely hip felt like silk beneath his fingers. Her thigh was slim and firm. He ran his hand up and down, up and down, ignoring the urge to slide it to the inside of that thigh and up to the heat he knew awaited him. Once there, he knew he wouldn’t want to leave, and he hadn’t yet had enough of the hip yet, or the outer shape of the thigh. Hadn’t explored her belly, her ribs, the breasts he would find farther up.

But first, the thigh and hip. He wanted more of them. Their silky softness made the tips of his fingers tingle.

Winter Fawn came awake slowly. Wind still howled outside like a tortured soul, while inside the fire burned steadily with a pleasant crackling sound. Soothing warmth surrounded her back, cocooned her, bathed her face. But another warmth, caressing her hip and thigh, excited rather than soothed.

Carson.

It was his hand that caressed her. Her shirt had ridden up to her waist, baring her to his touch.

She waited for the anger over his audacity to rise within her, but there was no anger. She searched inside herself for the shame she should feel over allowing him such liberties, but she found no shame. How could anything so glorious as his hard, callused hand on her flesh, or the heavy heat gathering down low inside her because of it, be shameful?

Winter Fawn was innocent in that she had never experienced a man’s lust, or her own, for that matter. But she was not ignorant of what went on between men and women, and she knew this feeling welling up inside her, the swelling in her breasts, the tightening of her nipples, the hollow, moist throbbing between her legs was lust.

She was not the only one feeling it. She knew what that hard ridge of flesh against her backside meant. He was aroused. He was ready to mate.

The thought sent twin shafts of longing and confusion shooting through her. Longing for this man who awoke feelings in her she had never known before. Not just these feelings of the flesh, glorious though they were, but also feelings in her heart. The feeling of staring straight into her destiny that first time she had looked into his eyes.

And confusion because she was not ashamed to want this man, even though they were not man and wife. And she should be ashamed. She should be repulsed, horrified. That she was not, that is what confused her.

The longing in her was so, so much stronger than the confusion. If she remained very, very still, and very, very quiet, she could pretend she was still asleep, and perhaps he would not stop. Perhaps he would go on touching her.

It was wrong to feel these things for a man not her husband, to want to join with him, to allow this need inside her to grow and grow until it threatened to swallow her whole. She knew, in her mind, these things were wrong. Yet being held in his arms, experiencing his hand on her bare skin, felt so…right. As if she had been waiting for Carson Dulaney her entire life. As if it was meant that they be together this way.

His hand did not stop at her hip this time. It slid to her belly. Up, up beneath her shirt, over her ribs, until he cupped her breast in his palm.

Winter Fawn held her breath and bit back a moan of startled pleasure. Oh! It was like nothing she had ever imagined before. If asked to describe the sensation, she would not have been able to. There were no words for the tingling heat, or the sharp tug in her womb when his thumb stroked her nipple. At the next stroke, she could not hold back the sound of pleasure that rose in her throat.

Her low purr pulled Carson from his sleep.

It wasn’t a dream. The woman in his arms was no phantom. She was real. She was warm. She was…
Winter Fawn.

“Good God.” He pulled his hand from her breast, and it felt as though he were ripping off part of his own flesh and leaving it behind. He squeezed his eyes shut and sat up, burying his face in his hands.

How could he have done such a thing as fondle her in his sleep? He was despicable! He was the lowest form of—

“Carson?”

Oh, God, she was awake, and her voice was quivering. With revulsion? With fear? Anger? He had hoped, prayed, that she’d been asleep and would never know what he’d done. “I’m sorry,” he ground out, unable to face her. “I’m…sorry.”

With a thick Scottish burr, she said, “Ach, now there be somethin’ every lass be wantin’ to hear.”

At her tart tone Carson turned his head and peered at her over his shoulder. “What?”

Anger radiated from her. “I was under the mistaken impression that ye were enjoyin’ yerself.”

Carson swallowed. “The mistaken—”

“Oh, don’t fash yerself,” she told him with a wave of her hand. “I don’t suppose I be the first woman some man has found wantin’. Or left wantin’.” Those last words were muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Carson to hear.

“Wha—” His voice broke. He cleared his throat and started again. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” She gave a delicate sniff and turned to face the fire. “I dinna say aught.” Then she looked back at him and tilted her head. “Why is it, do ye suppose, that one man wants a woman, and the woman canna stand him. Then when she does find a man she can stand, one who appeals to her, all he can say is ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘Tis a right odd way ‘o things, wouldna ye agree?”

The fire crackled as she boldly held his gaze. “Are you trying to tell me you liked what I was doing? The way I touched you?”

She sniffed again, a delicate sniff of disdain worthy of the haughtiest Southern Belles he’d ever known, and turned to stare at the fire. “I’m saying nothing. Me lips, as me da would say, is sealed.”

“Yeah, and if he had any idea that I’ve had my hands on you the way I just did, he’d string me up by my neck and let the buzzards pick my bones clean.”

“He isna here, Carson.”

“The hell he isn’t.” Frustration roughened his voice.

“It disnae matter,” she said softly. “’Tis obvious you dinna feel the things I was feeling, or you wouldna have said you were sorry.”

“Dammit, don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?” she asked, surprised, confused.

“Don’t put a weapon like that into a man’s hands.”

“I dinna ken yer meaning. What weapon hae I given ye?”

“Don’t tell a man you like the way he touches you.”

“And why not, if ‘tis true?”

“Because he’ll take advantage of you. He’ll get it in his head that if you like that, you’ll like more.”

“And?”

“God, you are innocent, aren’t you?”

“If you mean I’ve never been touched before the way you touched me, then aye. Is that bad?”

Carson closed his eyes and prayed for strength. The strength to resist the sheer temptation of her. “Winter Fawn, a man will lie and cheat and steal, sometimes even kill, to get what he wants from a woman. And once he’s got it, he’ll walk away without looking back.”

“You?” She looked at him with hurt and disbelief in her eyes. “You would do such a thing?”

“I’ve never met a man who wouldn’t, given the right circumstances.”

“That is not what I asked. I asked if you would do this. If you would lie and cheat and steal and kill to get what you want from me, and then walk away. Without looking back.”

He opened his mouth to say yes, but the lie stuck in his throat. He had never been that type of man. But damn, she shouldn’t trust him so much. He wanted her. Wanted everything she had to give. But he wasn’t ready to take a wife, and she had no business ruining her life on him.

“I think,” she said quietly, “that you would like me to believe these things of you, but I canna, Carson. I have seen the man you are. If you dinna want me, then ‘tis I who should apologize. I shouldna hae said aught when you pulled away from me.”

“Not want you?” He nearly laughed with the irony of the situation. With a hand that no longer trembled with cold, he reached out and stroked her cheek. The way she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch was nearly his undoing. “I want you much more than is wise.”

“Why?” Her eyes opened slowly. “Why is wanting me unwise?”

“Because,” he said bluntly, “I’m not looking for a wife, and you should not give yourself to any man but your husband.”

She laughed and pulled away from his touch. “You talk of giving. I had more in mind to take.”

At her bald comment, a certain part of Carson’s anatomy jerked stiffly to awareness. “Dammit, Winter Fawn, you—”

“Never mind,” she told him. “I wouldna take from an unwilling man.”

Despite himself, Carson laughed. “Oh, honey, I am anything but unwilling. How many men have you been intimate with?”

“Intimate? You mean, mated with?”

He pursed his lips. “That’s as good a word as any. How many?”

She looked away again. “None.”

“That’s what I thought. That’s how it should be. When you take a husband—”

“You mean when my uncle or my grandfather or my father chose a husband for me, whether he be to my liking or not.”

“They would not chose someone unworthy, would they? Someone you truly couldn’t love?”

“My uncle chose Crooked Oak. Love? There is not even a liking between us. Not from my side.”

“Your father wouldn’t agree to Crooked Oak. Not now.”

“I know not what is in my father’s mind. I see him for a few days every spring and that is all. He canna abide to be around me longer than that.”

Carson stared, stunned. “Why do you say that? He loves you.”

Her smile was sad. “Perhaps. But still he leaves. I fear he will marry me off to the first man he sees, just so he will not need to worry about me.”

“I think you’re wrong about that.”

She eyed him from the corner of her eye. A sly smile played across her lips. “He might even try to give me to you. He likes you.”

“Oh, no.” Carson shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no. I’ve had one wife. I don’t need another one.”

Winter Fawn laughed. “I see panic in your eyes. Do not worry, Car-son Du-la-ney,” she said, giving his name the halting pronunciation of her people. “I willna let him talk you into such a thing, since ye be so reluctant. I dinna want a husband who doesna like to touch me.”

Carson opened his mouth to again deny the charge, then snapped it shut. What the hell was he thinking to try to convince her how much he liked touching her? He was supposed to be talking her—and himself—out of such behavior. He had no business trifling with Innes MacDougall’s daughter. The man would cut off Carson’s balls and ram them down his throat.