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Caution tensed his muscles as the stranger drew close.
Mad Mag was the first thought to his mind, until she looked up. The deep blue eyes and delicate, feminine features lurking beneath that hood stole his breath.
She’s real. The passionate woman from his dream.
“You should be inside.”
Her voice was low, husky, and flooded his mind with the sounds of breathy moans, the image of her rose-tipped breast straining toward his mouth.
“Move.”
Her harsh tone and stern gaze jarred him from the tantalizing vision. He stepped back, allowing her to rush him through the doorway. She quickly shut out the wind and wisps of snow.
“Go lay down.” She pointed toward the far wall, her stern tone commanding as she stared him right in the eyes.
Maybe this bitty thing had clubbed him over the head and dragged him to her bed. Shock rippled through him…along with an undeniable stir of attraction.
Boots brushed his leg on his way to the corner, and Garret realized she was talking to his dog, not him. He scrubbed a hand over his stubble-coated jaw. He obviously wasn’t working with a full deck. His brain struggled to take hold of the notion that his dream lover stood before him. He stared at her, his mind lost somewhere between reality and a really good dream.
She propped her gun beside the door and glanced briefly at the floor. Her supple pink lips pressed to a firm line as her gaze moved over puddles of melting snow. He’d left the door wide-open.
“Sorry about that.”
Sharp blue eyes narrowed, her expression bordering on lethal. Not quite the passionate woman from his memory—his dreams, he silently amended. He eased back toward the warmth of the stove, his instincts warning him not to crowd the little filly. Her soft, delicate features were a clear contradiction to the hard blue eyes watching him with calculating caution.
She stayed beside the door, her posture stiff, defensive. The hand hovering near her waist made him wonder if she wore a gun beneath her coat. She pushed her hood back, revealing silky black braids tucked behind her ears. In his mind her hair was loose, fanned out across his arm, his chest—
“How do you feel?” she asked, her smooth voice washing over him like a sensual caress.
Uncomfortably aroused. He shifted his hold on the blanket and had to remind himself he didn’t know this woman. Other than the alluring images in his mind, he’d never seen her before.
“Alive, I suppose,” he answered. At the moment he wasn’t certain of anything else. His dreams blended with reality, distracting him from the questions he should be asking. Like why he’d awakened in the high country, where were his clothes and…had he actually bedded this woman? Best to start with something simple.
“Where am I?”
“About eight miles north of your ranch.”
Eight miles? Most of them straight up by the looks of the mountainous terrain he’d glimpsed outside.
She shrugged off her heavy fur. Garret wasn’t sure what he expected to see beneath the long coat, but the vibrant red flowers stitched across the shoulders of her white shirt took him by surprise. The garment hung to mid-thigh, cinched at her narrow waist by a beaded belt. She wasn’t wearing a gun. A leather sheath secured a long bowie knife at her hip.
Tiny but fierce, he thought, noting how her gaze didn’t stray from him as she hung her coat beside the door. Buckskin britches encased her slender legs, the bottoms tucked into her tall Indian-style boots. He only knew of one mountain woman to frequent these ranges, had been close enough to the old woman called Mad Mag to catch her stench, to see the filth on her hands as she had held a rifle to a man’s chest. The wide white cuffs of this woman’s shirt were etched with red thread and hid her hands, revealing just enough of her fingers to see her clean, short fingernails. She smelled as fresh as a spring rain.
“You were caught in the storm,” she said, drawing his gaze back to her young, pretty face.
He remembered a rainstorm, and the cold…waking to a beautiful woman sleeping in his arms. His gaze slid to the bed, a sense of dread tightening his gut.
“Do I have you to thank?” he asked. “Or was it your husband who brought me here?” A husband would be good. He needed some reassurance that the visions in his mind were just that—visions.
“You can thank your dog. If not for him, you likely would have froze before I found you.”
“You found me?”
Her posture stiffened. “That’s right.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but…I don’t recall your name or riding up to this…” His gaze slid over the stone walls. “Cabin.”
“I’m not surprised. You were froze out of your mind when I found you. That was the day before yesterday. Once your chill wore off a fever set in.”
He had the vague memory of a cool, damp cloth stroking his skin, her smooth, husky voice encouraging him to drink. Incapacitated for nearly three days, it wasn’t a wonder he was starving and his bladder about to burst.
His shock wearing off, he was hit by the renewed urge to step outside.
“You’ve been sick,” she said. “You should lie down.”
“What I need are my clothes.” And an outhouse. At this point, his clothes would be a waste of time—he had to go now. He took a step forward.
The woman’s hand went for her blade. The glint in her eyes told him she wouldn’t hesitate to fillet him.
“Easy, honey,” he said, raising his hand, the other gripping the blanket at his hip. “I’m just headin’ for the door. No reason to get jumpy.”
“You can’t leave,” she said, her hand still on the hilt of her long knife.
“I need to step outside for a spell.”
Her stance widened as though she thought she could stop him. “It’s still storming.”
“Lady, I’ve got to take a leak,” he all but shouted, the pressure becoming downright painful.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened, understanding easing her tense expression. God bless her, a pink flush flared into her cheeks. “There’s a chamber pot under the bed.” She rushed past him.
Garret watched her kneel beside the bed and figured she must be out of her pretty little mind. It was bad enough he stood before this woman in nothing but his boots and a blanket. He’d damn well risk the frostbite.
“You can—” A burst of cold air hit Maggie’s face as she sat back. Her guest slammed the door shut behind him.
“Of all the fool notions!”
His dog scampered after him and barked at the closed door.
“He’s going to freeze,” she spat. And this time she was not going to tend to his warming! Boots bumped against her leg as she stood, his tail wagging wildly. He was obviously happy at seeing his master up and around. Maggie reached down to pet him and noticed her hands were shaking.
He’s awake.
She didn’t know why Garret’s size had come as such a shock—but it had. Tending him while unconscious hadn’t prepared her for looking up at those flexing muscles, his eyes clear and alert. The way he’d stared at her…
He remembers.
If her cheeks blazed any hotter they’d catch fire. She pressed her hands to her flushed skin. Hellfire. She was actually blushing. The fact that he’d flustered her so increased her worry. He’d taken one step toward her, his eyes dark and turbulent, and she’d damn near drawn her knife against him.
A natural reflex, she reasoned. For someone who lives in the wild. She’d spent most her life hunting, skinning and shooting at anything that came at her baring teeth, whether it be beast or man. And there’d been plenty of both.
She’d suffered her share of scratches, bite marks and bullet wounds. Even so, she ventured that most folks, sane folks, didn’t greet a request for an outhouse with a knife wound.
Biting out a swear word she grabbed one of the blankets at the end of her bed and dropped it onto the wet floor. It had been too many years since she’d been so close to anyone. She’d never had cause to be cordial with any man since Ira. She wasn’t sure she remembered how. After so much effort to keep Garret alive, she’d sure hate to harm his handsome hide.
I ought to bar the door while I have the chance.
Instead she draped the damp cloth over her chair and hurried to the stack of barrels she’d turned into tall cupboards. Opening the hinged side of the center barrel she took out Garret’s clean shirts and trousers. She pulled his coat from the bottom barrel.
He’ll rest up and be gone by tomorrow.
Her stomach flopping something awful, she tossed the stack of clothes onto the trunk and pressed a hand to her belly. The sight of black braids lying over bright red blossoms made her groan as the heat in her face intensified. She felt foolish wearing the ornate nightdress she’d hemmed, her hair woven into the only style she’d ever done on her own. No respectable townswoman wore braids at the age of twenty-seven, but Maggie didn’t own any hairpins and wouldn’t know what to do with them even if she had. She’d done the best she could to appear feminine, normal.
She hadn’t convinced him. His expression had creased with confusion as his gaze soaked up her attire.
“I don’t give two shakes what he thinks of me,” she muttered as she hung his coat beside hers and went to the stove. So long as he doesn’t think I’m Mad Mag. With Nathan hunting her and wanted posters boasting a reward for her capture, she couldn’t risk anyone knowing where she lived.
She glanced warily at the door. Boots stood vigil, whining as the wood creaked against a gust of wind. Hopefully he hadn’t gotten too close a look at her that day in town.
She dragged in a shaky breath and lifted the lid off her stewpot. Thick brown gravy bubbled around tender meat and potatoes. Her appetite soured at the memory of Nathan grabbing her in that alleyway. Her surprise had paled to his. He’d been shocked to see his little sister alive and well—a shock that had given way to undeniable fear. She’d relished the fear and had spent the weeks before the first heavy snow checking out his new place. Had she caught him alone she would have finished what he started in Bitterroot. But Nathan was a coward. He didn’t take a step out his door without being surrounded by his hired guns.
Before winter had set in she’d taken care to give Nathan the welcome he deserved. There wasn’t a holding pen on his ranch that could stay latched. Rattlers had become a common inhabitant of his outhouse. She’d spent quite a few nights bedded down in the tall grasses around his place, gazing at the night stars as she listened to her brother’s yelps and shouts echoing across the plains. Her brother hadn’t changed a lick in fourteen years—he was still a thief and a liar. And folks still turned a blind eye to his treachery. His band of cattle thieves spent more time skimming off neighbors stock than tending their own. She’d followed along on a few of their late-night roundups, watching intently as they gathered and moved nice tight herds, tucking the longhorns into canyons and valleys on Circle S land. It sure didn’t take much to spook a herd of cattle. She grinned, recalling just how high-pitched a man’s scream could hit.
She’d move on, just as soon as she settled her business with Nathan.
A burst of cold air announced Garret’s return.
“Damnation! That is a cold wind.” He slammed the door shut as a gust lifted the edge of his blanket, giving her a glimpse of his rounded backside.
Nothing I haven’t already seen, she lamented, which didn’t do a damn thing to settle the sudden stir of her pulse.
Boots pawed at him, demanding his attention, and nearly stripped him of the blanket he struggled to keep around his waist. “Easy, boy.” He knelt down, briskly rubbing his hands over the dog’s thick coat. “Glad to see you, too, but we don’t want to offend the lady.”
Lady? A pleasing stir moved through Maggie at the unexpected title. She watched the bunch and flex of muscles beneath his bronze, knowing full well there wasn’t anything offensive about Garret’s body.
“Worried about me, were ya?”
The dog hadn’t been the only one to fret over him. After all her toil and trouble, he’d traipsed off into the storm!
“Sick as you’ve been, you shouldn’t have risked the chill,” she said. “I would have given you some privacy.”
He straightened and shoved a hand through his tousled hair, giving her a clear view of his green eyes. The curiosity she saw in those gentle depths stirred a tingling surge of sensation she’d first felt when she’d awakened in his arms.
“No sense in you getting a chill, as well,” he said, taking a slow step toward her.
“I’m not the one who’s been abed the past two days,” she said, her tone sounding hateful to her own ears.
Be civil, she silently berated. She’d been schooled in good manners and proper etiquette, though she couldn’t clearly recall a single lesson. Her life before Ira was nothing but a distant dream.
“Your clothes are on the chest behind you,” she managed to say in a mild tone. “I hung your coat by the door. Your chaps are stored outside.”
He glanced at the stack of clothes and then looked back at her. “I’m much obliged.”
She would be, too, once he buttoned that chest into a shirt. Not that it would matter much. She’d memorized all the contours of his muscular form as she’d tended his fever, soothing him when he thrashed around, murmuring names in his sleep. Some she recognized, most she didn’t.
“Come here, Boots,” she said, patting her thigh. She rubbed the mutt behind his ear then pointed to his blanket. “Go chew on your bone.”
He stood beside her, watching his pet curl up in the corner. His lips curved into a grin as he met her gaze. The unexpected smile caused an equally unexpected surge of sensation low in her belly.
“I hope Boots hasn’t been any trouble for you.”
“Get dressed.”
His grin widened. “Yes, ma’am.”
She waited until he moved around the bed before she turned back to the stove. She watched the play of shadow cast on the floor as she took two bowls from her shelf and began serving stew.
“I sure appreciate you taking care of him,” he said, followed by the sound of his boots thumping to the floor as he pulled them off. “He’s been with me a long time.”
The care he showed for his pet was something that had always intrigued her. She couldn’t recall a time she’d spied Garret in the hills without his dog along.
“He hasn’t been any trouble.”
She could feel his gaze upon her, could tell he was watching her by the stillness of his shadow.
“Glad one of us hasn’t.” Fabric snapped as he shook his trousers out.
She set the steaming bowls aside as his shadow swayed, his hand reaching toward his head. She turned as he slumped forward and reached for the foot of the bed.
“Garret.” She was beside him in a flash.
“I’m all right,” he said, easing down to sit on the trunk.
Maggie curled her fingers into her palms, fighting her urge to soothe him. His complexion had paled. Wearing only his trousers, his shirt clutched in his hand, he rested his elbows on his thighs and blinked as though clearing his vision.
“You shouldn’t have gone out into the cold,” she scolded.
He glanced up, his gaze dark, burning with frustration.
Maggie took a step back, beyond his reach.
“Why in hell am I so weak?”
“You nearly froze to death. You’ve been abed for two days.”
His green eyes scanned her from head to toe and back again. “This may sound rude, but…should I know you?”
“I don’t see why you should,” she said, relief easing her stalled breath. “You were hardly conscious when I found you.”
