Mustang Annie (16 page)

Within moments, she stiffened against him, then pulled herself to a sit, and brushed her hair back. “How long have I been out?”

“All night.”

When she made no comment, he asked, “How do you feel? Do you think you can ride?”

“I'm shaky as an hour-old foal,” Annie admitted. It took all the strength she could muster just to sit up. Her head spun, her stomach pitched, and her arm hurt so bad from fingertip to collarbone that it was all she could do not to break down and cry.

It disgraced her to admit how weak she felt. One wouldn't think such a small hole could drain so much out of a body, yet she couldn't recall feeling so helpless in years, and it would do neither of them any good to deny it.

But he was right. Injured or not, they couldn't stay here. It was too open and there was no water.

“There's a cave not far from here.” Gritting her teeth, holding her arm tight to her side, Annie scooted up to her knees. “We can . . . reach it . . . from the plateau,” she added breathlessly. When Brett hastened to help her stand, she didn't shy away. “From there, we'll still have a good view of both ends of the canyon.”

“What are you talking about?”

Annie hesitated at the confusion in his tone. “Holing up until we can go after the stallion. What are you talking about?”

“Getting you to Sage Flat to find a doctor to look at that arm.”

“I'm not going to any doctor.”

“Annie, you just took a bullet—”

“This?” She waved at the bandage. “It's little more than a scratch. A couple of days and I'll be good as new.”

“You can't be sure of that. What if it gets infected?”

Annie sighed and sank back onto her heels. “Look, Corrigan, if you want to ride out of here, I won't stop you. But I'm not about to make myself a sitting duck for every lawman and bounty hunter in the country.”

He shut his eyes and raked his fingers through his mussed hair. “I can't believe I forgot.”

“I suppose it's easy to do when you aren't the one living with it every day of your life.”

“Are you sure, Annie?”

“I don't have a choice. But if you don't mind, I'll keep the bourbon handy—just to keep the edge off.”

She didn't object when he helped her mount Fortune. As much as she hated to admit it, she didn't think she could sit alone for the next hour without falling off her horse.

After gathering Chance's reins, he climbed up behind Annie. Her heart started beating at double speed. She'd always been aware that Corrigan was no pint-sized cowpuncher, but as his arms closed around her to direct the reins, he seemed suddenly larger than life.

She held herself straight as they rode along the rim of the canyon, searching for the opening that would lead to the cave they'd stayed in before. Soon, though, the rocking motion of the horse and the strength of the man lulled her, and she sank against his chest.

Instant heat enveloped her. His arms buffered her from the wind. His heart seemed to beat against hers. Annie vaguely recalled a conversation with him. Had it been in her mind or had she really spoken her innermost thoughts aloud?

Spotting the tell-tale scattering of mesquite that marked the entrance to the cave, she pointed it out to Brett. He brought the horses to a stop, dismounted, then reached for Annie. She had to fight the impulse to lean into him once he set her on her feet. To her surprise, he was the one to take several steps back.

Weaving their way through the brush, Annie paused at the darkened cavity.

“This is it?” he asked, peering down into the chasm.

“It tunnels about forty feet down. We have to watch our footing, though, because it's a steep decline.”

He stepped in, then reached for Annie, making sure his grip remained around the right side of her body so he wouldn't jostle her arm.

Despite bracing herself for the slope, her feet slipped several times. She and Brett worked as a team, his right hand on the right wall, her left hand on the left wall. It got dark as a tomb. The turns and twists seemed never ending. Musty granite assailed her as well as the scent of Brett's skin. Salt. Earth. Sweat. Man.

The combination made her senses reel. Just when Annie thought she might not last the rest of the way without swooning, a light appeared, growing brighter the closer they approached the main chamber.

Brett loosened his hold around her waist and guided her to the mouth of the cave. Annie lowered herself to the cool floor and rested with her back against the wall. From here she could see Lighthouse Rock to the right, and distantly, the Spanish Skirts just past the cottonwood grove. Below, the pool where she'd taken Dogie swimming shimmered like diamonds.

“I'm going to bring the horses down into the canyon and get them unsaddled. Will you be all right until I get back?”

Annie nodded, touched by his concern. It had been so long since anyone had worried about her.

She watched him head toward the back of the cave, his shoulders straight and broad, his stride loose yet determined.

“Brett?”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“Henry was right. You really are a decent man.”

Chapter 20

B
rett returned to the cave much later than he'd counted on and found Annie asleep.

He slung the blanket-load of wood to the floor. So as not to disturb her, he quietly arranged the wood, started a fire, and put a pot of coffee on to brew, then set about skinning a pair of the rabbits he'd bagged.

He loved watching her sleep. She had the prettiest face, soft and relaxed in a way that it wasn't when she was awake and on guard. Her mouth shaped itself into a little smile, her lashes fell in a soft fringe upon her cheekbones, and her chin sought a resting spot on her shoulder.

His chest swelled with the realization that whether she wanted to or not, she needed him. He hoped he didn't let her down.

Once the rabbits were cleaned, spitted and put on the fire to roast, Brett brought out his telescope and searched the canyon.

“Still no sign of him?” Annie asked, rousing.

Brett lowered the scope with a grim set of his mouth. “Not yet.”

“He'll be back.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He favors this place. Once he's sure the danger has passed, he'll be back. Probably with another harem.”

And in the meantime, they were wasting time sitting around waiting for him. Only the thought that once they caught him, he'd lose Annie, helped curb Brett's impatience. The longer it took them to find Blue Fire, the longer he got to keep Annie with him. Though he hated that an injury had caused this delay, he also liked her dependence on him.

“You sure seem to know a lot about wild horses,” he said.

“I should. When I was a little girl, this canyon used to be my playground. I think I spent more time here than my own home. When other girls were playing with dolls, I was racing the mustangs.

“One day . . . oh, I must have been twelve or thirteen . . . I found this little filly all tangled up in some grapevines. They were wrapped around her neck, her nose, her girth.”

Annie's laughter had Brett's gut clenching.

“It was so pitiful it was funny. I cut her free and turned her loose, figuring she'd meet up with the rest of her family. Instead, she followed me. I spent all day trying to get her to stay but she insisted on trailing my footsteps. It started getting dark, and I knew I couldn't just leave her there for coyote bait, so I brought her home. Granddad was fit to be tied at first, but once he got used to her, he told me, ‘You always said you wanted to work with the mustangs, so I reckon this here's your chance.' And the name stuck.”

Brett found himself smiling along with her.

“It's too quiet out here,” Annie said, bringing her blanket around her shoulders. “I keep expecting to hear Emilio play his guitar or Henry bang on those damn pots, or to see Dogie race through camp to escape the wrath of his latest victim.”

Brett's jaw tightened. He didn't trust himself yet to think about—much less discuss—Dogie, not with the stunt that had cost him one of the best ropers he'd ever come across still fresh on his mind. He tucked his scope into his saddlebag, then sat down across the fire. With a stick, he poked the fire to bring it to life, then turned the spit. The delicious scent of roasting meat and drippings hitting the embers began to rise from the fire.

“Why do y'all call him Dogie, anyway?”

“A dogie is a little calf whose mama is dead and whose daddy has the wanderlust. He'll adopt himself into another family whether they want him or not. Most times, it's a scrawny little thing that has to be carried around in the chuck wagon till he grows into his legs. And that's exactly where we found him one day—sleeping in the bed of one of the wagons back at the ranch. He's been Dogie ever since.”

“What will you do to him when you get back to your ranch?”

He stared grimly into the fire. “I haven't decided yet. I've tolerated his pranks for months. I didn't say anything when he put chili pepper in the coffee, or when he blew up my windmill, and I went easy on him when he almost drowned me. Dogie never means for anyone else to pay for his foolishness, but now he almost got a man killed—and that's not something a body easily forgets. Maybe . . . maybe his own guilty conscience will be enough punishment.”

“You know, Corrigan,” Annie drawled, “there might just be hope for you yet.”

A glow started deep in his gut and spread outward, reaching to the deepest shadows of his being. There'd been a time in his life when he'd have sold his soul for compliments like that, yet Annie gave them to him without expecting anything in return. That they came so seldom made them even more valuable, since Annie didn't waste her breath on platitudes.

“Is that coffee I smell?” she asked.

“Fresh pot. Supper should be ready shortly, too.” He wrapped a mug of scalding coffee in a towel and brought it to her. “Let me take a look at that arm.”

Annie shrugged the blanket off her shoulders as he knelt at her side. He'd covered her with one of her shirts, but, afraid to jostle her arm, he'd just draped it over her shoulder and buttoned it below her breasts. Unfortunately it left her chemise exposed, and a teasing glimpse of cleavage above the scooped neckline.

Though he felt her watching him as he unwrapped the stained bandage, Brett avoided looking at her, lest her effect on him show in his eyes. She thought him decent. She couldn't be further from the mark. A decent man wouldn't be wondering what she looked like under that chemise. A decent man wouldn't imagine touching more than the wound on her arm.

A decent man didn't dream of making love to another man's wife.

“They killed him, you know.”

The words came out in a low, raw tone, as if ripped from deep within her soul.

Brett lifted his head, somehow knowing by the sorrow in her eyes whom she spoke of. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn she'd heard his thoughts.

“He was my husband, my friend, my everything. His only crime was in loving me and they killed him for it.”

Brett stared at her, saying nothing.

She looked away, her gaze landing blindly on the horizon where a setting sun painted the skyline in blood reds, rusty oranges and fiery pinks. “That's what you've been wanting to hear, isn't it?”

Every egocentric thought, every callous word he'd said to her about the man came back to slap him in the face. After a long silence, he whispered, “I'm sorry.”

“For what? The death of my husband or the guilt of being glad for it?”

He didn't know how to answer at first. He couldn't deny that his heart soared at the news that he had no rival for Annie, yet seeing her in such anguish cut him to the marrow.

“I'm not glad for anything that would cause you pain. I'd think you'd know that by now.”

His reply made Annie wish she could take back the accusation. Maybe he was relieved that he no longer had the worry of an enraged husband coming after him. Could she hold that against him? Especially when he'd been nothing but patient and gentle the last few days?

He was still a man, after all. Just because talking of Sekoda's death aloud for the first time had shredded her heart in two didn't mean Brett had to share the emotion. He hadn't known Koda, hadn't built a life with him, hadn't dreamed with him and seen those dreams destroyed.

As with Molly, he'd simply come along when she'd needed him most.

Annie just hadn't realized it until now.

 

The days and nights passed in relative calm. Annie was almost grateful, for it gave her a chance to mend. Despite her claims to Brett, her arm hurt like fury, yet each day she worked it to rebuild its strength.

Though Brett said little to her, there was some-thing comforting in his silence. He never pressed her to talk, but he made his presence known. He would look at her and smile. Cook their meals, tend to their horses and tack. It made her feel at once useless and cherished.

Annie tried steeling herself against softening toward him, but she found it much easier to resist Brett when she wasn't a target of his kindness.

“You never talk about yourself,” she remarked one afternoon while they were washing their clothes in the creek. Everything Annie owned was filthy beyond recognition.

“There's nothing much to say. What you see is what you get.”

His crooked grin made her stomach flutter. “What about your family?”

“I don't have any family.”

“No brothers? No sisters?” She thought of Dogie. “Children?”

“Be careful, Annie. Any other man might mistake that as an offer.”

Her cheeks warmed, and a tiny part of her delighted in the return of the rogue.

“Why the sudden curiosity?”

She shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “It just occurred to me that you know more about me than I do about you. That hardly seems fair.”

“I see. All right, what do you want to know?”

“Well, you once said you didn't want a son.”

“No, what I said was, most men want sons, but I'd prefer daughters.”

“Why?”

“Girls are soft. Sweet. Innocent. Boys are rough. Loud. Domineering.”

She tore her gaze away. “Boys just want to grow up to be like their daddies.”

His tone tightened. “Not all boys. Some want to be as different from their fathers as they can be.”

The stern set of his stubbled jaw, the tight grip on his shirt and the near violent scrubbing of it against the rock told her she'd hit a nerve.

“Was he that bad?” she asked softly.

His hands stilled. He turned and pinned her with a hard, unforgiving look that she sensed was directed more at the man who'd sired him than at her. “He was selfish and mean and overbearing. He ruled over everything and everyone until he either killed them or drove them away.”

Annie let her gaze drop and softly said, “Be careful, Corrigan, or you'll turn out more like the man you hate than you realize.”

He flung his shirt into the water. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She'd come too far to back down now. “The way you treat your men. For a man who wants to be so different from his father, you've grown up just like him.”

Annie wished she could take back the words the instant they were out. Why hadn't she just kept her mouth shut? Now, the companionable peace between them was shattered, leaving behind nothing but regret and strained silence as they finished their wash. After draping her clothes over rocks to dry, Annie dreaded returning to the confines of the cave. She found a cushion of grass to rest upon where the late-day sun could warm her and a breeze could brush against her skin. Brett strode a short distance away to smoke.

Though barely a hundred feet divided them, it might as well have been miles. She realized then that she'd allowed herself to get too comfortable with him, and in a way, too dependent.

Maybe it was better this way. Surely the stallion would return soon. They'd catch the devil, get what they both wanted, and go their separate ways.

Oddly enough, the thought didn't appeal to her as much as it once had.

“You're right, Annie.”

The remark drew her gaze to where Brett stood, close to the water's edge, his knee jutting out, his hip at an angle.

His gaze shifted to the diamond-tipped crinkles in the creek. “I'm turning out just like him.”

That was the last thing she expected him to say. She lifted herself up onto one elbow.

“My family owned a horse farm in Louisiana.” He ground his cheroot out beneath his heel and slipped his hands into his back pockets. “Father started out with nothing and built it with his own sweat and blood, and he never once let us forget it.” He paused to shake his head. “Damn, but he was a hard man. Nothing we did was ever right or good enough. The horses weren't groomed to his satisfaction, the training didn't progress the way he demanded, our studies always came short of his expectations . . . but even my brothers would tell you that he was hardest on me.

“Corrigan men had always been big but I was small and skinny and clumsy—the runt of the litter. My body never quite worked the way I wanted it to. My mother kept telling me that I would grow into my skin but it's not an easy thing to believe when you're surrounded by four tall, strapping brothers.”

“Didn't they ever stand up for you?”

“Not often. They were quite a bit older than me, and I guess they figured I could use some toughening up.”

He came to sit near her, his legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, his arms bracing his weight.

“I threatened to leave a lot. Father would say, ‘Go ahead—you won't last a day on your own. You're nothing without me.' ”

The accent she'd heard only traces of came out strong and thick, and with a rancor she hadn't thought possible even for him.

“I swore one day I'd make him eat his words, but I couldn't bring myself to leave Mother. He was easy on us compared to how he treated her. Always accusing her of cuckolding him with the neighbors. Always making her feel as if she owed him for putting up with me, who he swore came from one of her affairs. If you knew my mother, you'd realize how ridiculous the charges were. She had been the Belle of the South, could have had any man with a crook of her finger, and she chose him because she loved him. She'd have died before dishonoring their vows.”

“Why would she stay with him if she was so unhappy?”

Brett shrugged. “Love. Fear. Obligation. I don't know.” He stared at the worn tip of his boots for a long while. “She must have finally reached her limit though, because when I was fourteen, she threw herself down the stairs and broke her neck.”

Bitter sorrow clouded his eyes. “He didn't deserve a beauty like her and she didn't deserve a bastard like him. She only wanted to love him and he treated her like dirt. I swore I'd never make a woman suffer the way she did.”

Annie had no idea what to say, and so she simply stared at the water. Oh, to be that loved again. To feel that much devotion. She finally understood the loyalty that kept his men around.