Foxfire Bride (35 page)

"I think you do," Tanner said, an urgency in his voice that she hadn't heard before.

Fox placed her fingertips across his lips, her chest aching. "No." She didn't want him to say something out of pity that he could only regret. "I know who I am. I know my place."

And she knew how it would all end for her. Every now and then she got mired in the might-have-beens and struggled to find a way toward Matthew Tanner's life. But the answer was always the same. Her future had been foreordained the day Hobbs Jennings dumped her on the doorstep of her mother's cousin. Nothing would change that. For a brief time she'd been given a glimpse of happiness, allowed moments of joy that she'd never imagined. Those moments would never come again, she knew that. And what would life mean if her only joy lay behind her, never to come again? It was better to face the hangman than to live an empty life without this man.

Tonight they made gentle love beneath the brilliant night sky. They undressed at leisure, teasing each other with slow revelations and whispered promises. Lying face-to-face, gazing into each other's eyes, they stroked skin that trembled beneath exploring palms. Kissed until Fox ached with desire and whimpered his name with mindless need. And when he moved his weight on top of heryesand finally thrust into heroh yes, yesall thought fled her mind and she surrendered to a blissful tension so intense she could not contain it. Clinging to his sweat-damp shoulders, she gazed at the sky and felt herself fly toward the tiny pinpoints of light. When his head collapsed on her shoulder, she held him tight so he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes.

Tanner held her until his arm went to sleep and cramping tingles made him grind his teeth. Only then did he carefully withdraw his arm, lean his back against the cooling sandstone tower and light a cigar.

The usual mix of thoughts stirred his mind. Memories of the day's long ride jumbled with concern for his father's welfare, interspersed with the problems on the job he'd left uncompleted in the Nevada mines and the problems that would arise after his father was freed. He thought about his life in general and in Denver.

His father dined with bankers, judges, mining magnates. When Tanner was in town, so did he. Denver's society was rustic, still developing, but it existed and he and his father moved in those circles. Tanner wouldn't be in Denver three days before invitations began to arrive for soirees, musicales, lectures, balls. At this time of year there would be lavish outdoor entertainments, picnic excursions into the foothills. Calls to pay. Lectures. Dining at his club or formal dinners at the large homes of civic leaders.

Dropping his head back, he blew smoke at the dark sky. Wherever he went mothers would throw their daughters at him, lovely pastel creatures made of gossamer and fairy dust, ready to collapse in a faint at the mere suggestion of impropriety. They would gaze at him over the folds of summer fans and declare their love of nature and animals and small children. Some would display their skills at piano or singing. Others would find a reason to show him hand-painted flowers on china cups. If the young lady were of a bold nature she might resort to mild gossip when the allowable range of topics expired.

Remembering such encounters made Tanner's mind go numb. Not for the first time he wondered why a man would choose to spend his life with a woman whose honor demanded restricted conversations and actions. A woman who locked away her true self. A woman who would never give herself to a man the way Fox had given herself tonight.

Yet such women were the wives of choice for successful men with wealth and background. Pretty ornaments without dissenting opinions whose duty was to produce an heir and never to dishonor their husband's name with a breath of scandal or outrageous behavior. That was the type of wife Tanner was expected to choose.

He gazed down at Fox, sleeping in a protective ball, her rich red hair loose to her naked waist. He could dress her in silk and install her in a mansion, buy her the finest carriage in the territories, and still the people in his world would never accept her.

The problem seemed insurmountable. A man could polish a piece of granite all his life and never turn it into a diamond.

They crossed the Dolores River early enough in the afternoon that Fox suggested Peaches get in some fishing since plenty of daylight remained. When he appeared reluctant, she gave him a little push. "We'll have a fish fry for supper. Aren't you sick of beans and jackrabbit?"

"Even fish would be better than snake."

Desperate for variety, they had skinned and fried a large rattler the previous night, but ended by tossing supper over a cliff because no one could get past the idea of eating snake.

"You pick a good spot and I'll fetch your pole."

Tanner was off searching for fossils and Jubal read one of the yellow journals about famous outlaws in the west. "I wish someone would write about me in one of these books," he said as Fox passed him carrying Peaches's pole.

"You have to be famous first. And then it's mostly lies in those books. Made up to shock the rubes back east."

"By tomorrow I figure I won't need the crutch Tanner made me. Figure I can start carrying my own weight again."

"It hasn't been quite a week yet. Give yourself a little more time."

"Well, I'll be damned," Jubal said, staring after her.

Peaches was sitting on the ground, watching the water rush past, his eyes tired and muddy brown. Usually he didn't cough much unless he was moving, but he had a spell now that left him breathless. Fox studied him a moment then pulled her shoulders back. "I'll see if I can dig up some worms or find something else that will serve for bait. How are you feeling?" she asked, making it sound like an afterthought.

"Never felt better," he said looking at his handkerchief before he stuffed it in his pocket.

"Good. Glad to hear it." Keeping her mind focused on finding a tricking worm, Fox stabbed at the ground with a shovel. Near the river the ground was spongy and moist and eventually she collected half a cup of worms. "This should get you started."

Peaches walked to the edge of the river and she sat on the damp ground, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Remember that big fish you caught off the pier in San Francisco? Nobody could believe you caught it by just dropping a line off the pier. And how about the prize trout you caught in the Carson River the first summer we were there?"

"I remember a couple of big ones you caught, too, Missy." But he didn't have the energy to be specific, and he was coughing again.

For the next twenty minutes, Fox talked, sparing Peaches the need to say anything. She talked about laying in salted fish for the winter, and hanging fresh venison away from the bears. Talked about some gypsies they'd met a long time ago who said they ate skunk, which was disgusting. No one ate skunk.

"Missy? Come here. I got something. Been so long since you caught a fish, I'll let you bring it in."

Fox saw his arms trembling, and took the pole from his hands. Turning aside, he bent and gripped his knees and coughed until she thought her nerves couldn't stand it anymore.

"It's a big one," she said, bringing the fish in, pretending not to notice as he sank to the ground. "You know, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to catch the next one myself."

"I don't mind," he said in a strangled voice.

She'd made a mistake. She'd hoped to give Peaches a few hours of pleasure, but his expression told her that she'd created a punishment. Blinking hard, she swore silently and jerked the pole savagely to sink the hook as she pulled enough fish out of the river to make a generous supper.

"This is the best fish I ever tasted," Jubal said later, savoring each bite. "Thanks, old man."

Peaches started to explain that Fox had caught all but one, but a coughing fit interrupted him. Fox jumped into the silence with a bright voice. "Yes, sir, Peaches is one of the best when it comes to fishing." She told them the full story about the big fish Peaches had caught off the pier that no one had believed.

Tanner and Jubal exclaimed in the right places, speaking in the same bright unconcerned voice that she had used. It broke her heart.

"That old man's in a bad way," Jubal said after Peaches went to his bedroll.

"No he's not," Fox snapped, fury in her eyes.

However, she decided against spending a free day on the banks of the Dolores. Peaches needed rest, but more than that, he needed a doctor. Once they came off the mesa and dropped into the valley, there would be settlements and people. Surely there would be someone who knew how to relieve consumption.

Neither Tanner nor Jubal Brown said anything, but she read the pity in their eyes. Mad enough to spit, she stamped away from the fire and went down to the river where she hurled rocks into the water for an hour, until her arm felt like it would fall off.

Fox stayed beside the river until she was sure Tanner and Brown were asleep. Before she stumbled back to camp, she threw back her head and screamed at the new moon.

"If he dies, you and I are through! You hear me, God? I'll never talk to you again in my whole fricking life! You take someone else and leave Peaches alone. Damn it! I need him more than you do!"

She waited a full minute, staring hard at the moon, then she dashed a hand across her eyes and strode away from the river.

During their second day on the mesa, a small group of Utes passed, traveling in the opposite direction. Both parties eyed each other suspiciously, the Utes showing particular interest in the strings of mules, but no one spoke. That night Tanner, Jubal, and Fox rotated on night watch. Twice Tanner thought he heard odd sounds rustling among the piñon trees to the east of camp, but nothing came of it.

"It might have been Indians," Fox agreed over her morning coffee. "If so, they must have spotted you sitting near the fire with a rifle across your legs and thought better of taking a run at our mules."

After a long hot morning they reached the edge of the mesa and Tanner reined up to soak in the pleasure of the broad fertile valley below. Here, at the confluence of two major rivers, spring burst forth in full glory. Cottonwoods flared in full leaf, knee-high grass rippled in a light breeze. Drifts of yellow and purple wildflowers ran riot across the valley floor.

Something eased and then expanded in Tanner's chest. Without realizing it, he'd been looking for this place ail of his life. A lush valley sheltered to the south by the mesa and on the north by soaring red book cliffs. And trees and water near the fossil fields he'd discovered in the sandstone.

More important, here was the solution to his future.

"Daydreaming isn't going to get us off this mesa and across the Gunnison River," Fox said lightly, leading her string of mules up beside him.

"A person could drop a seed down there and it would be a radish before he came home from fossil searching."

She cocked an eyebrow. "I don't see you as a radish farmer."

Shifting on his saddle, Tanner met her gaze. Today her eyes were a deep ocean blue with only a hint of gray. "I was thinking that the man's wife might grow radishes." They stared at each other. "If she had a mind to, that is. Do you like radishes?"