Wild Burn (6 page)

“M-Mr. Crawford?” Her eyes grew bigger, rounder.

Slowly, so as not to startle her, he lifted a hand between them. “May I?”

She looked confused and slightly alarmed, but nodded anyway.

Her silky hair stroked sensuously over the backs of his knuckles as he slid his hand between the mass of it and her pale throat. Lifting, he pushed the cool strands back over her shoulder and let his thumb tug gently upward on the errant locks covering her ear. Her left ear.

Her left ear, which was pink and angry, but clean and showing no signs of infection. A small half-moon of flesh was definitely missing, right at the top of that delicately curled shell. “I won’t ever hurt an innocent again,” he promised quietly as he studied the wound. He wondered if it would’ve healed faster had the doctor attempted to stitch her up, but it was too late now, and she appeared to be taking hygienic care of the site. “I won’t, Miss Tully.”

He heard her suck in a deep breath. “Thank you.” She made no move to pull away from him.

He couldn’t help it. He let his fingers slide further into her loose hair to cup the back of her skull. His thumb stroked over the sensitive skin of her hairline, just above her ear, carefully avoiding the tender wound. Her body heat, her scent, twined around his senses until tension he didn’t know he carried left his shoulders and he could taste her, with the coffee and biscuits, on his tongue.

He wanted to
actually
taste her on his tongue, but now…now was not the time.

It wasn’t ever going to be the time.

But he was still held in the grip of that rose-and-mint fragrance, and it wouldn’t let him go. Not without telling her, “You smell good.”

“You smell…better than yesterday.” Her lips twitched as he drank in her pretty features. How long would it take him to count all the freckles on her face?

At least an entire, uninterrupted night. From dusk to dawn. And then maybe to dusk again.

So he released his hold on her and backed down the steps, promising himself he’d go to the Ruby Saloon tonight. He needed it. What he didn’t need was
her
. “Miss Tully.” Grumpy once more, he pulled his hat low over his brow.

He caught a glimpse of her blue eyes staring down at him with more cautious warmth than he’d yet seen in them. “Mr. Crawford,” she replied, the lilt in her voice barely evident in the short syllables.

That lilt rang in his ears for the rest of the day.

Chapter Seven

She couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Even sitting on a rough pine stool next to John White Horse’s bed, Moira couldn’t shake the image of Crawford’s scrubbed face and trimmed beard as he touched her.

And that she’d
allowed
him to touch her so intimately… She had been struck by the thought that, though he’d shot her, she was safe with him. He wouldn’t intentionally cause her harm, hadn’t intentionally hurt her to begin with.

She could still feel his hand curved around the back of her head this morning, holding her in place while he studied the damage he’d inflicted. She could still feel the heat of his breath against her jaw, making the invisible hairs on her skin stand on end. She could still taste the sharp scent of the lye soap that clung to his face and neck. She could still see the neat, short bristles of his nearly black beard, the revealed swarthy skin of his throat, the ends of his shaggy hair carrying the shine of cleanliness where it brushed the stiff collar of his coat.

She had memorized him all over again, and it was so much more devastating this time. His pale jade eyes were just as compelling, as though he was able to peel past the layers of her skin and drill through the barriers she’d erected over her bones. Those barriers were for her own safety, but as she’d breathed him in, she’d wanted to let go. Relax. Release. She’d wanted to trust him to hold her upright and let him shoulder the burden of her past, if only for a few minutes.

Moira needed a few minutes of respite.

For a brief time on the front stoop of her cabin, he’d stared at her in a way that only one other man had stared at her. Except, instead of feeling awkward and threatened, a fire had started at her toes—unsuitably bare and hidden beneath the hem of her dress—and twisted with blast after blast of red heat up her legs to curl into smoky wisps in her abdomen. Her hips had felt liquid, her stomach clenching painfully, as if hungry, and she had so desperately wanted to ask him
what are you thinking about?
What was he thinking about when he looked at her with such stark, unfiltered wanting?

Because when he looked at her like that, she thought it might be pleasurable to give in to it, revel in it.

She should know better than to trust a man who gave her that look.

Turning her attention back to the injured man in the bed, Moira managed to muster up a smile. “I’m so relieved a fever didn’t set in, Mr. White Horse.”

He returned her smile with a soft one of his own. “You should really start calling me John, like everyone else. There’s no need to stand on propriety, especially now that we have both been on the receiving end of the same bullet.”

She chuckled wryly. “I suppose that does link us. In a very strange way.”

“Strange, yes. But you should still call me John.”

“Then I am Moira.”

He shook his head on the pillow, a wince betraying lingering pain from the muscles connecting neck and shoulder. “I cannot call you by your Christian name, Miss Tully.”

“I don’t see why not.”

His expression was faintly pitying. “I am Cheyenne. The people here would kill me for speaking so familiarly to a lady.”

She reached out a hand to lay reassuringly over his where it rested limply against the fur throw covering him from the chest down. “I promise you, I’m not a lady.” He had no idea how little of a lady she was, especially if her continued reaction to the captain was anything to go by.

“I cannot, Miss Tully. But it would please me if you would call me John.”

“Well…”

“I am gravely injured, Miss Tully. You should not deny an injured man such a request.” His low voice carried a teasing note, wrapped around the precise manner in which he enunciated each word.

She squeezed his hand before releasing it. “I think you’re likely not as injured as you’d have me believe, John, if you’re so quick to cajole me into doing your bidding.”

He grinned, revealing lovely straight white teeth. “You are right, of course. I will return to my duties within the next day, though my arm will not function properly awhile, I fear.”

That sobered her. John’s duties not only included serving as liaison between the hill tribe and Red Creek but also traveling to Denver with a few Indian men and women once a week, to assist with their trades. During those outings, he wore white man’s clothing and tucked the long tail of his sleek black hair under his hat. He acted as both guard and translator for the Indians, as well as playing their banker—many Denver shopkeepers insisted on money as payment, and John handled the transactions there and when the tribe wanted to purchase items at the Red Creek store.

He did so much, for his people and for hers. He was quite young too, probably a year or two her junior. She studied him unobtrusively where he lay. Even in the sickbed, he was a handsome man, with his dark honey skin stretched taut and smooth over a sharply angular face. His dark eyes were slightly slanted and beautifully lashed, his lips much fuller than those of most of the men of her acquaintance. When he was up and about, he stood just under six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a lean physique due to both his relative youth and his active life—he was always hunting or fishing, or constructing something from wood and animal hide.

He’d been living in Red Creek for over a year before his uncle’s tribe had settled over the hill. When Moira had arrived late last April, John had been a fixture in this town. She knew he had encouraged Walking Bear’s group to attempt integration, hoping to keep them from extradition from the territory. It was how she had made his acquaintance initially—John wanted to know if she’d be willing to teach native children, should he be able to convince them to attend white school.

She wasn’t so far removed from the Church that she embraced prejudices she’d never before claimed, and she’d never believed skin color was the measure of a man. He’d been an immediate friend to her, soft-spoken and nonthreatening, though undeniably male. So when he asked her to teach the children, she had no qualms about saying yes…if only those children would come to the school.

She asked him about it now. “Are you any closer to getting your little cousins into my classroom?”

“Yes.” Surety tinged his tone as his eyes flashed with excitement. “There are at least three who told me they want to come, but their mothers are worried.”

“Worried about what?”

“The other children. The white people of Red Creek. You.”

“Me.” He’d answered her bluntly, but she took no offense at his honesty. “How can I help, then?”

John hesitated, his emotions plainly written on his face. Moira found him much easier to read than Delaney Crawford, whose desire for her was his only blatant expression. Desire wasn’t an emotion but a state of being, and though she hadn’t checked, she knew she could’ve glanced down and seen equal evidence of it below the snap of his trousers. But an erection wouldn’t tell her a thing about his emotional state, and she resented him his ability to hide what was in his mind. She’d never quite managed to keep her own feelings as closed off.

“Perhaps you can come with me one day. The mothers would feel more comfortable meeting you before sending you their children.”

“They need to know they can trust me.” She understood the sentiment. Trust needed to be earned.

Her mind flicked briefly back to Crawford. He hadn’t earned her trust yet…had he? Did protecting her in the clearing, tending her injury, and his surprise visit this morning prove him worthy of her wounded trust?

“And you can trust me to keep you safe, Miss Tully,” John murmured reassuringly, his gaze warm and friendly. “You will be my guest, if you come with me, and I promise you will come to no harm.”

She tilted her head to the side, frowning. “I wouldn’t worry, John. Every Indian I’ve met has been peaceful.”

With a deep breath, he hoisted himself up on his good arm, grimacing as he angled his upper body toward her. Though he said he’d be mobile within the next day or so, Moira had her doubts about his recuperation time. “John, what are you—?”

“You need to know, Miss Tully, that not every Indian is a good Indian. Even within my people, the Cheyenne, there are those who would not pause before hurting a white woman. That is why Captain Crawford is here.” His dark, liquid eyes implored her to understand. “He would not be here if there was no need for him. You should not walk alone in the clearing anymore.”

“I haven’t been back.” She wanted to tell him to lie back down as she watched sweat bead at his temples. His heavy fall of hair was a tangled mess behind him and where it caught on the open collar of his loose homespun shirt.

His face began to leach of color, but he stayed upright. “I do not want you to get hurt because you trust the wrong Indians. There are many who are very angry over being forced from their lands.”

“And rightfully so.”

“But though they are angry,” he continued, “it does not mean they should resort to violence. There is a band of six men, led by a brave called Cloud Rider, and they are the reason Captain Crawford came.”

“But these are your people. How can you be so accepting of what Crawford will do?” She leaned forward, her hands clasped over her knees as she met John’s gaze in earnest. “He’ll kill them.”

“I know. But I accept that this must be done because I want
my
people, my uncle and my family over the hill, to have a future here, not far from the camp where I was a child. Cloud Rider is a threat to any peace we might create. We are lucky to have the Dog Man Killer here.”

“Why?”

“Because there is nothing indiscriminate about what he does. He only kills those who deserve killing.”

“No one deserves killing, John.” She wasn’t sure she believed her words entirely, but there was too much of the former nun in her to let his conclusion about Crawford go unanswered.

John fell back on his thin pillow and stared up at the exposed beams of his ceiling. “You are wrong, Miss Tully. These men do.”

She stood then, moving to pull the fur over his chest from where it had fallen to his waist when he tried to sit upright. “I’ll come with you to visit the mothers and children. For now, you need rest.”

He caught her wrist with lean, strong fingers, and while his touch was warm, the work-roughened skin didn’t set her body aflame with the same sort of awareness she’d felt with Crawford’s hand above her nape. The thought both reassured her and worried her. “Miss Tully.”

“Yes?”

“You live alone in a cabin, at the base of the hill.”

“So do you, John.”

His lids drooped as his brow furrowed. “I cannot protect you right now, but Captain Crawford can. He will keep you safe.”

Safe.
The word sounded almost dangerous in this context, her earlier pondering of the concept aside. “You don’t need to protect me. I can keep myself safe.”

“He can keep you safer.”

She left John’s cabin and headed for the schoolhouse, his words a fretful refrain inside her head.

Chapter Eight

“I know who you are,” came a man’s slurred voice from behind him.

Del sat at the polished bar of the Ruby Saloon, nursing a whiskey and not bothering to turn around. He had no interest in starting a conversation with a drunk, not while he was working his meandering, one-drink-at-a-time way toward a good buzz of his own. His day had been long and less than fruitful, and when he’d entered the drinking—and whoring—establishment twenty minutes ago, not one woman had captured his fancy. He supposed that probably didn’t matter, that a woman was a woman, but the idea of screwing one senseless felt…wrong.

The only woman he wanted senseless below or above him was Moira.