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“Suzie and I warmed up this way on many a winter’s night.”
How innocent could a woman be to believe that his reaction was anything close to what her sister’s had been?
“There, that’s better already, don’t you think?”
A grunt was the best answer he could give until he caught his breath.
“How on earth did your mother ever let you out of the house?”
“Oh, she didn’t let me out. I ran away in the dead of night.”
Missy Devlin sighed and her thumb tripped across the pocket of his shirt. Heat flushed through his chest.
“It’s a wonder she didn’t tie you to the bedpost.”
“If mother had tied me to the post, Suzie would have let me loose. Now, my brother Edwin would have tied us both … Here, put your arms around me just like this.”
To illustrate, she squeezed him closer. If he were a stronger man with a lick of sense, he’d go stand in the rain where the only dangers were the sidelong wind and the creeping flood, but her warmth had already begun to ease the shakiness out of his bones, so he turned to face her.
He tucked his chin on top of her hair and smelled damp roses. He laid his arm across her waist then pressed his palm to the middle of her back, drawing her in.
Since he wanted to put his mouth to use in a way that didn’t involve tasting the floral-scented warmth that blushed from her cheeks he asked, “Why did you run away from home, Miss Devlin?”
“To write the great American dime novel.”
He felt her smile tickle his neck. He wished he could see it, foolish as the reason for the smile was.
“You ought to have stayed home. All those stories are made up. Pure scandalous trash is all they are.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, Mr. Coldridge!” Her body squirmed in apparent protest. “Why, in one day Muff and I have been assaulted by a bank robber and rescued by a bounty hunter. I’ve had my dress eaten and my manuscript stolen. If that is not adventure, I can’t tell you what is.”
“Sounds more like a string of misfortunes to me.”
Evidently Missy Devlin lived in a different world than most folks.
“What on God’s earth made you leave the safety and comfort of home for a place like this?”
“Can I trust you not to mock me? You seem to be less than admiring of my ambition.”
“You can.” At least he wouldn’t do it out loud. “I’ll take this as the beginning of a friendship, then. Will you call me Missy … and let me call you Zane?”
Since talking was the only honorable way to spend this long, close night, he agreed.
“Well, then, Zane,” she said, relaxing against him in a way more friendly than she must realize. “Let me tell you, safe and comfortable are well and good, but also tedious and restricting. Why, the minute a girl kicks up her heels and does something the slightest bit daring, she gets frowns and stares from everyone she meets.”
She sighed. Her breath warmed his neck. Between her belly and his, the animal she called a dog began to squirm.
“A sweet little thing like you getting frowns and stares? It baffles the mind.”
“And not only me. Suzie, too!” All at once her voice softened, the spark that animated her snuffed out, as though the tarp had suddenly come loose and the rain doused it. “At least, she used to. Suzie’s quite subdued these days.”
A long silence stretched, filled up with the beating of rain on the tarp. Close at hand, although he didn’t know exactly where, he heard Ace snort in wet misery.
Surprisingly, the thought of a person just like Missy subdued didn’t set easy on his heart.
“Why is that?” Maybe he was prying, but she was the one who had declared them friends.
“My sister was paralyzed two years ago when our buggy slipped off a bridge in the rain. Papa died … I got a bruised chin. Edwin had to grow up, just like that. One day he was a boy flirting with girls and the next he was raising them.”
He drew her in with a squeeze, offering comfort that he knew could not be found. He understood such grief. Even years from now the loss would sting.
“Since Suzie can’t come West, I’m sending the West home to her.”
“Darlin’, this isn’t the place for you. It’s not what you think. It’s dirty and wild and unpredictable. Listen, do you hear that?” As if on cue, thunder rolled low and threatening overhead. “The weather alone should be warning enough.”
The little dog whined. It wiggled out from between them. It crawled to Missy’s face, licked her cheek, and then wagged its musty-smelling tail across Zane’s nose. He pushed the dog down, toward his knees.
“What I know is that storms don’t last forever. Why, under this tarp we are getting as warm as can be.”
“What if I hadn’t come along? How long would you have lasted out there without even the clothes on your back to protect you?”
“But you did come along.”
The dog scrambled over his hip; a nettlesome growl rumbled in its throat.
“Let’s say I didn’t? What if it was just you and Wage? There’s even worse than him out there who’d have taken more than your horse.”
“Muff, no!” Missy reached for her dog.
She grabbed for Muff, reaching above her head, then down Zane’s neck and over his chest. When she groped for the dog in a place he’d never invited a proper woman, he did a quick flip.
In the scuffle he managed to keep the dog near his feet without opening the canvas to the rain. The trouble was, he’d also gotten Missy pinned underneath him.
In the darkness, the whisper of her shallow breathing filled the canvas. The quick brush of it against his face filled his nose with her rosy scent.
“It’s a lucky thing for me that you’re the one who came along,” she murmured.
Maybe not so lucky. Even under the coat, he felt the curves of her breasts rising and falling beneath the trip and hammer of his heart. The layer of petticoats wasn’t thick enough to keep him from noticing a pair of shapely female legs go rigid, then relax beneath his.
Heated breath moistened his mouth. Her lips couldn’t be more than an inch away. He nearly groaned into the tiny space of simmering darkness that separated them.
Would she turn her face aside in outrage if he kissed her? Maybe slap him across the cheek with her slender hand?
Or worse, would she welcome it? Would she melt against his mouth then give herself over to him with an eagerness that would singe his mustache?
With the possibility only a searing gasp away, he shouldn’t let himself get carried away with the dream of what it might be like to brush his tongue over her lips, to taste them and explore the shape and delicate texture of them.
Missy’s heat flashed through him, spun about his insides then settled low and urgent where it shouldn’t. It was wrong to allow his imagination to run wild. His brain, ready to boil over, was a thought away from becoming reckless.
Somehow, the little lady had gotten him stirred up inside, and all by lying perfectly still.
How was it that she made him want to run like hell away and dive in headlong all at once?
One thing he was sure of, if he didn’t grit his teeth together, take a big bite of bitter reality, this would be one adventure that Missy Devlin would never write to her sister about.
He pressed the canvas on each side of her shoulders then pushed himself up so that he didn’t feel the tug of her breath calling him to behave disgracefully. He lifted up as far as he could without dislodging the shelter and letting in the rain.
There must be some remnant of honor left in him.
The close air stirred, fabric shifted, she touched both of his cheeks with her fingertips. They felt like hot butter against the week-old growth of his beard.
“Go to sleep now, Missy.” He settled down beside her then kissed her forehead with a quick peck. The dog scratched and plumped the canvas near Missy’s feet. “I’ll see you safe on the train first thing in the morning.”
Chapter Three
Missy snuggled into the cocoon-like shelter. The rain on the canvas had slowed to a steady splat.
Hours must have passed. It ought to be morning since the absolute black inside the tarp had given way to shadowed gray.
She felt rested … even energized. Such amazing things had happened in twenty-four hours. Her fingers fairly itched to write them down.
Zane’s slow, even breathing told her that he was still asleep … with his arms around her and his chin resting on top of her head! She could only hope that Muff would not need to get out. It would be fine to lie here until the rain quit, feeling the slow rise and fall of her hero’s chest, heartbeat to heartbeat against her own.
Last night, she had taken his advice and gone to sleep at once. Her emotions and her body had been tumbling in confusion and delight. A few hours’ rest to figure them out had been what she needed. Luckily, sleep always came easily, as sweet as a little bird settling into a nest.
Zane didn’t know it, but his vow to put her on the first train home had been wasted breath. It was a wonder that he hadn’t felt her silent bubble of laughter.
Out here in the West, free of the restrictions that Edwin had put on her behavior, she was an independent woman. Yes, indeed, free as a feather on the breeze. She certainly hadn’t come to Nebraska to have Zane Coldridge take Edwin’s place.
Suddenly, Zane sat up. The canvas cocoon burst open with a rush of cold, wet air. Missy noticed his hand reach for his gun even before he had come fully alert.
“What’s wrong?” she sputtered against the rain tapping on her mouth.
He didn’t speak. He touched her lips with two fingers and cocked his head to the left, listening.
She felt a slight rumbling in the ground a second before she heard a great roar and boom pound the air. Muff exploded from the folds of the canvas, trembling and barking.
Zane leaped to his feet and grabbed her hand. He yanked her up and pulled her along toward the rise of the hill.
Through the rain she looked down on the flood that engulfed Green Island.
Water lapped at the front porch of the hotel. While she watched, a wave washed inside the lobby. A man ran out, lifting his feet high in an attempt to clear the water. Luckily, her belongings were on the second floor and likely safe.
“Damn it all to hell,” Zane whispered under his breath and this time his curse didn’t sound at all colorful.
Missy followed his gaze upriver to see a massive chunk of ice floating on the current.
“The gorge up in the narrows must have burst.” He gripped her fingers tighter. “We’ll be safe enough up here.”
He scooped Muff up from the ground and stuffed him in the big pocket of her borrowed coat.
Upriver, several boulder-sized ice chunks bobbed after the first. The river was jammed with them, jouncing and crashing into one another, piling up on the shoreline then breaking loose with furious screeches and cracks.
Zane glanced backward, toward the flattened shelter of the canvas. He let out a shrill whistle, barely audible over the thunder of the ice. A second later his horse trotted into view with mud caked on his large black hooves.
He gripped the horse’s reins tightly in his fist. If it was truly safe on top of this hill, why did Zane seem to lean toward the horse as though ready to leap upon its great wide back at any second? Why did a silent shiver race through his arm and into hers?
The first of the giant ice floes hit the Congregational Church. Its tall spire shook but the building held … for a moment.
Hit by three more vicious blocks of ice, the structure left its foundation in one piece. It floated gracefully away with the current. A bend in the river took it out of view. Only the white steeple bobbed in and out of sight behind a grove of bare-branched trees.
The snap of shattering wood splintered the air. The church steeple tipped, then vanished.
Even over the rumble and thunder of the river, Missy heard the splitting screech go on and on. The church must have broken, shattered like toothpicks among the trees downriver.
Missy looked back toward the hotel. The man who had run outside had taken refuge on the roof. He called out to a group of men running and waving their arms on the far bank.
A pair of ice floes hit the hotel and sent it floating after the church. The man flopped down on his belly and rode the peak of the roof.
“God protect him,” Zane mumbled. Missy barely heard him over the shriek of splitting buildings.
In only a few moments the river had robbed Green Island of every building but one, and that one looked half caved-in and fully flooded.
Many of the structures floated away whole, only to be shattered to bits around the bend. A few others broke apart before her eyes.
Still, the worst wasn’t the ruined homes and businesses. It was the men, women and children clinging to rooftops, floating doors or any other surface to keep from being sucked into the turbulent water or crushed by a random shift of ice.
People from Yankton, the town bordering the north side of the river, ran along the shore, shouting and waving their arms, helpless to do anything more because of the treacherous current.
On the side of the river where Missy and Zane stood, a roof floated past carrying a family of five. They held tight against the violent lurch and sway.
The roof split down the middle when a jag of ice, pushed to the river bottom by a downward wave, suddenly lurched up again. One member of the family, a little girl of no more than three, clung to the separated piece.
The child’s mother tried to scramble into the water but her husband prevented her, holding her down with the weight of his body.
In only a moment, the family’s screams faded, carried away downriver along with the rooftop. The baby’s wail of terror grew louder when the current swirled her fragile section of shingles toward the shoreline not thirty feet below.
“Stay here,” Zane ordered.
He placed the horse’s reins in her hand then ripped the ribbon from his hair. He placed the worn scrap of lace in her fist then curled her fingers around it.
In the second that it took him to scramble down the bank, the roof snagged on the shoreline. It bucked and heaved against the current. It reminded Missy of a drawing she had seen in a dime novel of a wild horse trying to dislodge its rider.
The little girl held on as well as any bronco-buster she had ever read about.
But, Lord have mercy, her strength would be no match for the huge hunk of ice set on a dead aim for her fragile section of roof.
The wood roof pitched upward just as Zane lunged for it. A splinter of wood that felt like a two-by-four stabbed him under his thumbnail. He bit down on the pain and pulled up with straining arms until he got one leg over the rooftop.
