Colorado Heart (9781101612026) (16 page)

“Let's just hope this place isn't occupied,” he said. But he didn't add,
Because things couldn't possibly get any worse.

NINETEEN

W
armth was just a memory as far as Cassie was concerned. She stood where Jake left her, with her hurt leg bent so she wouldn't put any pressure on it and her arms wrapped tightly around her body, as if they could erase the desperate chill that sunk into her soaking wet body. She felt strange, as if she wasn't in her body, but hovering somewhere above and watching everything that was happening to her. The rain still pounded outside and the darkness was heavy, so everything around her was nothing more than shadows. Luckily, Jake had a box of matches in his pocket and he lit one to explore the overhang they'd sheltered in. She watched the tiny point of light as he raised it and lowered it around the stone walls until it fizzled and went out. Only a few seconds passed until he lit another one, and she was hypnotized by it until she blinked and realized Jake was standing right in front of her.

“We're alone,” he said. Cassie heard the words but her mind didn't understand them. All she felt was the cold and the wet. Her ears rang with a sudden silence even though she knew the rain still fell and Jake's voice echoed around her. “No one is at home,” he continued. Jake bent down to look at her. “Cassie?” He touched her cheek. “Dang, you feel like a block of ice. We got to get you warm.”

Warm . . .What did warm feel like? She couldn't remember. She felt Jake's hands on her. He pulled off her coat and it fell to the ground with a plop. He rubbed her arms and her body jerked back and forth with the motion. She was still balanced on one foot with just her toe touching the ground on her left. She staggered and he caught her.

“Hang on,” Jake said. What was she supposed to hang on to? She needed something solid, and even though she was surrounded by stone walls, there was no place to grip. Jake went out into the rain. A moment passed, or it could have been days for all Cassie knew. He tossed his rig inside. She heard him talk to Skip and then somehow he got the horse inside the cave. He went to the back of the cave again and returned with his arms full of something . . .

“We aren't the first to take shelter here,” he said. “Believe it or not there was some wood back there. It's older than dirt but I think it's enough for a small fire.” He dropped the wood at the opening and pushed Skip to the back of the cave.

“Fi-fire . . .” Cassie said through her chattering teeth.

Jake knelt down and had a fire going before she could blink. “It's going to be smoky in here but we can tolerate it.” Once more he was before her and took her upper arms into his hands. “Cassie. We got to get these wet clothes off you. Do you understand?”

Somewhere deep inside her, fear coiled like a snake. A man was touching her. He pulled at her clothes. His hands were on her.

“No!” Cassie said, and slapped his hands away. She staggered back against the wall. Where was her gun? She'd lost it. It was in her coat pocket. Where was her coat? Why didn't she wear it on her hip in a holster? Because she'd never found one that fit. And now, when she needed it, she couldn't get to it.

“Cassie, I'm not going to hurt you.” He had a gun. The man who was touching her. The man who wanted to take her clothes off. “You're freezing,” he said. “I've got a blanket and some spare clothes.” He held his hands up and away and Cassie's eyes darted to the gun that hung on his hip. “You can put those on.”

Cassie lunged for his gun. Her leg gave way and she crashed into him. He wrapped his arms around her and she struggled against him. Once more she was too weak and too small. It couldn't happen again. She wouldn't let it happen again. She would rather die first.

I almost died . . .
If not for Jake . . . Somewhere in her addled brain she realized what had almost happened to her. She would have drowned in the flood if he had not been there. Jake came after her. He saved her. He was the man in the cave with her. He wasn't going to hurt her. Where his arms wrapped around her, she felt the warmth of his body. She was so tired of being cold. She was so weary of being alone.

“I got you,” he said against her ear. He'd said those words before. Just last night, when she was so angry after the attack. She was tucked up beneath his chin with his arms wrapped securely around her waist. Her feet were still on the ground, but he supported all of her weight. “I'm not going to hurt you, Cassie. I know what happened.”

Her stomach flipped over and shame filled her. “You know?” The thought that he knew her secret was more than she could stand. There was no place to go, she couldn't get away, and she couldn't hide it. She couldn't pretend like it hadn't happened and she couldn't make it go away.

“Can we get you warm and dry first?” Jake asked. “Before we talk?”

All she could do was nod in agreement.

“Can you do it yourself?”

Cassie looked down at the small fire. There wasn't much wood and it wouldn't last until dawn, but it offered something. A spark, or was it a ray of hope, perhaps? Things didn't have to be the way they were. But it was entirely up to her to change them. She heard Skip shifting around at the back of the cave. There wasn't much room; another body and certainly another horse would have made things crowded. But it was shelter from the storm. Shelter was something she'd been seeking for a long, long time.

“You might have to help.” Was that her voice that sounded so shaky? “My leg won't hold me.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” Jake said. “Would you believe me if I said I'll keep my eyes closed?”

“Nope,” Cassie said with a nervous laugh that made her feel strangely better. It felt good to laugh. It felt natural. It felt right.

“I'm glad to see that you know the real me,” Jake said in reply. She felt his smile above her head. “There's a spare shirt in my saddlebag. How about you put that on and get undressed beneath it. Then you can wrap up in the blanket.”

“Is it dry?” she asked.

“I wrapped it up in oil skin. It should be.”

“You think of everything, don't you?”

“I'm a planner, Cassie. But I wasn't planning on you.”

She tried to see his face in the darkness, but it was nothing but planes and shadows from the small light of the fire. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Let me get that shirt for you.”

She balanced on one leg again while Jake rummaged through his saddlebags. He came back with a shirt and a thick pair of socks. Cassie unbuttoned her flannel and dropped it to the ground. Her long-sleeved undershirt was wet also but she waited until Jake threw his shirt around her shoulders. Then she turned around. Jake put his hands on her waist to balance her, and she buttoned up his shirt and then pulled off her undershirt from beneath his. She wore another undershirt beneath that was light muslin and sleeveless. She felt the heat of Jake's hands on her skin through the thin fabric.

Cassie longed to be warm all over. Jake moved his hands as she put her arms through the sleeves of his shirt and it swallowed her, falling down to her knees. She shivered again, so hard that her teeth chattered. Jake steadied her by putting his hands on her waist again. They felt nice there, comforting and oh so very warm. Cassie reached underneath the shirt to unbutton her pants and slid them down her hips.

“Don't you want to take your boots off first?” Jake asked. “Hang on.” He kept one hand on her waist and picked up the blanket with the other one. He shook it loose and dropped it on the ground beside her. “Sit down,” he directed and he helped Cassie to the ground. Another pain shot up her spine as she sat, and she grimaced. The light was so dim that Jake didn't see it.

“I'll take care of these,” Jake said. He knelt before her and pulled off her boots and then her socks.

Cassie pushed herself up on her hands and another pain shot down her leg. This time she wasn't able to hide it so well.

“Just sit,” Jake said. “I hope nothing is broke.”

Cassie obeyed because the more she moved the more her hip hurt. Jake reached up beneath the shirt tail and Cassie froze. “Shhh,” he said like he was gentling a horse. He looked at her. His face was lost in the shadows, his eyes dark as the night, but she saw the flash of his smile and it was gentle. “Just relax,” he encouraged. “We're almost done.” He tugged her pants down her legs and threw them aside. He picked up her feet and placed them on his knees. “Like ice.” He grinned, and he placed his hands over her toes and squeezed.

It felt so good that Cassie sighed. Jake laughed. “If I'd known the way to shut you up was to rub your feet, I would have done it days ago.”

“Just shut up and keep rubbing,” Cassie said. It was wondrous how relaxing his touch was. The fact that he touched her and she had no fear. She'd been terrified before because she'd come so close to death. Funny how she'd been thinking about dying, how it would be so much easier than the everyday struggle that was living, and yet when faced with it, she realized that she very much wanted to live.

Live. Not just exist, marking time and counting down the days until her life was finally over. She wanted to live and she wanted to feel alive.

Jake quit rubbing her feet and put the socks on her. She didn't want him to stop, but she wasn't brave enough to ask for more. He pulled the edges of the blanket around her body and tucked it up under her chin. “Get warm,” he said, and turned to put more wood on the fire. “This fire won't last all night, so you've got to get over this chill.” He picked up her clothes and spread them out close to the fire and then rummaged in his saddlebags again. He unwrapped a sandwich from some brown paper and handed it to her.

“You do plan ahead, don't you,” Cassie said as she took a bite. It was ham, and it was very tender and juicy, and held a taste of molasses. Since she hadn't eaten all day, it was heaven. Jake sat on the other side of the fire. He must have the patience of a saint. He'd seen her at her worst, time and time again, yet here he was.

And he knew what had happened to her. Manuel had to have told him. Yet he didn't treat her any different, that she could tell. She always felt as if she should be ashamed, as if it was a failing on her part. It was foolish, she knew, but that didn't make it any easier to accept. If Manuel trusted him enough to tell him, then he thought Jake was a stand-up guy. Shoot, she thought Jake was a stand-up guy, but that didn't mean he was supposed to take care of her and her problems.

Jake started on his sandwich. “For every possibility,” he said.

The food was helping. Cassie felt solid now, where before she felt like she would dissolve in the rain. “I know you said Puck came back to the barn, but why were you still there?” She felt like she'd been gone a year instead of hours. “Did something else happen?”

“Libby showed up at my place again,” Jake said. “She might as well wear a sign that says
Trouble follows wherever I go.

“The first time I saw Libby, she was standing in my yard braying loud enough to wake the dead,” Jake said. “It was last October and the weather had just cleared from an early blizzard. I'd never seen her before, and the way she was acting had me worried. So I saddled up and decided to see if I could find out where she came from. She led me straight to this mining camp on the other side of town. Everyone there was dead from the measles.” Jake poked at the fire. “Men, women and children, twenty-seven people, all dead.”

“Libby was from the camp?” Cassie asked.

“She had to be,” Jake said. “We think Ward's dog came from there too. And the cat you got from the Martins.”

“Suzie,” Cassie said.

“Suzie,” Jake said. “So now whenever Libby shows up, I think there's trouble.”

“There wasn't any trouble the night we met.”

Jake laughed. “Maybe not for you. But I recall having someone point a gun at me and accuse me of being a thief.”

Cassie was grateful Jake couldn't see her blush. “Maybe I should apologize for that,” she said.

Jake pointed a finger at her. “Maybe you should.”

“Didn't your mother ever tell you it's not polite to point?” Cassie asked, hoping he didn't see her joy at his teasing. She didn't want him to treat her any differently because he knew about the rape.

“My mother didn't have time to tell me much of anything, because she was always working to support us,” Jake said.

“Where was your father?”

Jake shrugged. “Beats me. I never laid eyes on him. And as far as I know, my mother only laid eyes on him the one time.”

“I'm sorry,” Cassie said as a vision of a sad and lonely little boy replaced the actual presence of Jake across from the fire.

“It's nothing for you to feel sorry about. It's just the way things were. My mother was very practical,” Jake said. “She knew nobody was going to hand you a thing, and if you wanted something you had to work for it, so she worked two jobs. During the day she was a maid and in the evenings she worked in a pub. We rented a room above the same. She wanted better for me, so she enrolled me in a private school so I'd have a decent education. Work was what eventually killed her. She died when I was seventeen.”