Nan Ryan (18 page)

“Don’t warn me,” he casually cut her off, gazing at her dispassionately.

He looped the mare’s reins over her head, and the gray nickered and nudged his shoulder, wanting him to pet her. He didn’t. He led her up alongside the black, climbed into the saddle, and they set out once more.

The princess ground her teeth in growing frustration. He always got the last word. Worse, nothing she did or said seemed to penetrate his invisible shield of steely armor. He possessed the power to upset her with just a word or a look, but she couldn’t seem to get his goat no matter what she did. He effortlessly kept her off-balance and unsure of herself while he projected an unwavering attitude of cool confidence. Lord, how she longed to see him slip the sanguine pose and reveal something of himself.

The hell with him! No. She wouldn’t give him another minute’s thought.

The princess took her eyes off the Ranger’s black-shirted back and looked around. What she saw pleased her. The steep rocky ground abutting the ruined railroad trestle had turned now into a sloping grassy meadow. Her slender shoulders relaxed. She sighed with relief. The worst part of the journey was behind her. There could be nothing ahead that would be half as dangerous as jumping the wide, gaping void beneath the blown-up wooden trestle.

Thank heaven.

Not a half hour later the princess learned, to her horror, how wrong she had been. Jumping the trestle had been nothing compared to what lay just ahead. They had rounded a bend and come upon a high, windswept ledge so narrow they didn’t dare ride out onto it. They had to walk and lead the horses. The ledge was barely wide enough for a horse. Below, a drop of more than a thousand feet awaited the misplacement of a foot or a hoof. White as a ghost and sick with fear, the princess tried not to think what it would be like to have a kid slipper slide and give way. To feel herself falling to the rocks below.

To make matters worse, a fierce wind was now blowing with gusts so strong she was sure she would be blown off the ledge to her death. After ten spine-tingling minutes of edging slowly along the high ledge’s travertine twists and turns, the princess’s stomach churned when, despite his warnings not to, she looked down. She was instantly dizzy, clammy, and unable to move.

Virgil, following closely on her heels, knew what had happened. Angry with her for disobeying and putting all their lives in jeopardy, he turned slowly to the stallion he was leading and spoke to him in low, soft tones, warning him not to make a move. Then, carefully releasing the reins, Virgil, speaking in the same calming tone he’d used with the stallion, told her of his intent.

“I’m right behind you and I’m moving steadily closer. Don’t be startled when I touch you. I am going to put my arms around you. Right now.”

As he spoke Virgil stepped up to the paralyzed princess, slowly, carefully put his arms around her and drew her into his close embrace.

Against her sun-burnished hair he murmured, “Only a few more short yards to go, Red. Then, I promise you, the rest of the way is a piece of cake. The trick is to never look down. Pretend you’re strolling along the sidewalk back in Las Cruces.” He gently rubbed her back, patted it, held her trembling body next to his. “We’re nearly there, baby, nearly there.” He continued to hold her close and to speak to her in a low, comforting voice. But she was inconsolable. Quickly, he realized that she was not going to make it. She was incapable of taking one more step. She was stranded where she was. She couldn’t go forward and she couldn’t go back. He was left with no choice. He would have to carry her the rest of the way.

“Tell you what I’m going to do,” he said as casually as if he was making pleasant dinner conversation. “I’m going to take your arms from around me for just one second. No more. See, like this.” He did just that as he spoke. “Then, while I continue to stand here in this same spot, close to you, I am going to turn around so that we are facing the same way, with me directly in front of you. You can continue to hold on to me.” He turned then, carefully, slowly, with her clinging frantically to him. “And now I’m going to take your arms and put them around my neck.” He drew her arms up around his neck. “Good girl,” he praised, as her slender body pressed as close against his back as possible. He told her of his intent again as he crouched down slightly, put his hands around the backs of her knees, and cautiously eased her up onto his back.

The rest of the trek along the high, narrow, windswept ledge was completed with the princess riding Virgil piggyback while he lead the stallion and the mare followed.

Virgil was totally focused. He
had
to get her to safety. He steeled himself to disregard the fact that her forearms, clasped tightly around his throat, were pressing on his Adam’s apple, causing him to have choking sensations. Or that her firm thighs squeezed his ribs so tightly, he could barely breathe. Or that the heels of her small slippered feet, crossed at the ankle in front of him, were gouging into his groin so intensely, it was painful.

His quick mind, like his lean body, was well trained. He was able to put everything aside and concentrate solely on taking one well-placed step at a time. With the keen eyes of an animal, he examined every inch of the perilous path before him. And as he carefully placed his booted feet, one before the other, he promised, “We’re as good as there. A few more steps. That’s all.”

When the danger was past, when the ledge widened at last onto a tree-studded slope, Virgil felt a sudden weakness in his legs. And, as sometimes happens after a protracted period of extreme stress, he started to laugh. The princess, finally releasing her choke hold on his throat, slid off his back and she, too, began to laugh.

They sank to their knees and, laughing uproariously, soon fell over onto their backs. They lay there on the shade-dappled grass and laughed and laughed.

Virgil regained his composure first. A wide grin splitting his black-whiskered face, he turned onto his side and watched her.

What a sight she was. Tears of laughter spilling down her flushed cheeks, she looked like a carefree schoolgirl. Her hair had come undone from the bolo tie and swirled like a copper cloud around her beautiful face.

Rocked again and again by great peels of laughter, she kicked her feet in the air and tossed about on the grass. One of her kid slippers had come off and lay on the ground near her knee. Her borrowed blue shirt had drifted up around her midriff and the too-large Levi’s had floated down almost to the danger point.

Innocently unaware and uncaring that she was exposing so much pale flesh, she lay there on her back laughing hilariously, eyes closed, bare belly jerking with her convulsions.

Virgil’s eyes, swiftly darkening, were riveted to her. He couldn’t look away. Her bunched-up shirt afforded tempting glimpses at the bare underside of her left breast. Pale and luminous, it looked so soft and warm Virgil’s mouth watered. His fingers itched to push the shirt’s blue cotton fabric an inch or two higher, just enough for a quick flash of a pale pink nipple.

He licked his dry lips and let his smoldering gaze slide slowly down her body. She was so slender, every rib showed beneath the flawless alabaster skin. Her denim pants had slipped below one prominent hipbone and were snagged precariously on the other. Her pale, bare stomach was so flat it was almost concave. He focused on her navel. Like all the rest of her, hers was an appealing belly button. Equally appealing was the almost imperceptible line of wispy pale ginger hair descending from that cute belly button and disappearing into the waistband.

A vein pulsed in Virgil’s throat.

He lay on his side, staring unblinkingly at her.

Not touching her.

Wanting to touch her.

Needing to touch her.

He had an acute craving to lean over, bend his head, and press his open lips to her pale belly. To kiss his way up to the warm underside of that half-exposed breast and nudge the shirt up with his face until his lips could close over a smooth, sleeping nipple.

But even that would not have been enough.

Not nearly enough.

He wanted to brush his bearded face back and forth in the shadowed plain between her rising hipbones. To place his mouth squarely over her navel and kiss it as if he were kissing her lips. To put out his tongue and trace that narrow little line of silky hair down to where it vanished inside her pants. To pull the denims down with his teeth until they were out of his way so he could lower his hot face and scatter teasing, biting kisses up and down the warm insides of her alabaster thighs.

Virgil was so caught up in his carnal fantasy, he didn’t realize that she had stopped laughing and thrashing about. When she started frantically shoving the long-tailed blue shirt down to cover herself, Virgil, lost in lust, automatically reached out to stop her, saying hoarsely, “No. Don’t.”

“Don’t? Don’t what?” she asked, slapping his hand away and levering herself up into a sitting position. “What are you talking about?”

Her voice, slightly shrill, pierced his prurient reverie. He immediately came to himself and his bearded face flushed beneath his tan. Shaken, not wanting her to know what had been running through his mind, he sounded more gruff than usual when he said, “Finally finished laughing? Good. Now maybe we can get back on the trail.”

Confused by his quick change of mood, the princess said, “Me? You were laughing, too!”

Virgil rose agilely to his feet. “I’m not laughing now.”

The princess jumped up, got right in his face. “Let me get this straight. When you are laughing, it is perfectly okay, the right thing to do. But, if I am laughing, it annoys you. It seems to me that everything I do annoys you. You may not believe this, Captain Black, but I am trying very hard not to annoy you.”

A muscle danced in his jaw. He was confused and angry with himself for wanting her. This uncharacteristic flash of burning desire half frightened him. He had always controlled passion; passion had never controlled him.

Virgil took a defensive step away from her. His lower belly still tight, his heart thudding against his ribs, he did the human thing. He took out his frustration on her.

“I know,” he said coldly, “and that annoys me.”

20

The afternoon passed quietly
, uneventfully, with the two of them exchanging very few words. Determined she would be as stubbornly uncommunicative as he, the princess showed Virgil the same closed expression he showed her.

Their progress good, they dropped lower and lower down the mountain, the trail winding through the tall pines and scattered Douglas firs, past clumps of oak and over loose flat rocks. They were less than fifteen hundred feet above the valley floor when Virgil abruptly reined in and dismounted.

Curious, the princess watched him walk a few feet off the trail and crouch down on his heels. He was looking with interest at something. He stayed there for a long minute, then rose and came directly to her.

“I want to show you something,” he said, and plucked her out of the saddle.

“Indians?” she asked, as she stared down at the odd assortment of things gathered together beside the road. Piles of rock. Knotted rawhide strings. Hieroglyphics scratched on boulders.

“Apache messages,” Virgil told her. “This is the way they keep in touch with each other.”

“What are they saying?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. What I do know is we have to be very careful from here on out.” He looked directly at her. “You understand me?”

“I am not dimwitted, Captain,” she declared.

“Good. Then you know better than to get out of my sight.”

On they rode.

Finally, as the burning summer sun was dropping behind the blue-purple peaks of the distant Oscuras, they stopped for the night. While Virgil unsaddled the horses, the princess examined the campsite. The spot he had chosen was a nice flat plateau, studded with cedars and carpeted with grass. On one side of the grassy mesa, a narrow stream splashed down from above.

Princess Marlena, casting a glance at Virgil, leisurely crossed the plateau, reached the front edge, and peered cautiously down. And sighed, her shoulders relaxing. No dangerous drop-off here. Just a long sloping hill covered with loose gravel and scattered patches of sparse underbrush. Nothing to be afraid of.

Shading her eyes against the sun’s glaring gloaming, she gazed out at the valley which they were sure to reach early tomorrow. And then …

The princess emitted a sudden loud shriek of surprise as, moving her right foot slightly, she slipped on a pebble. Instantly she found herself hurling headlong down the rock-strewn hillside. She managed to stay on her feet, but couldn’t stop herself from speeding down the incline.

Virgil heard the shriek and came running. She was already halfway down the hillside when he plunged anxiously over the edge and chased after her. His legs longer and more powerful, he caught up to her within seconds but knew if he reached out and grabbed her, they were both sure to fall and roll the rest of the way down the hill. If that happened, she might be badly hurt.

He raced on past her while she shouted, “Stop me! Stop me!”