Dreaming Of A Western Christmas. Carol Arens
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he could see for miles in any direction, screened from view by a dribble of granite boulders. Clarke’s Castle, he called it. And it was still a good twenty miles ahead of them.
They stopped only once to refill the canteens. By the time both winded horses clattered up the mountainside, the wind was chilling the back of his neck and his mouth was so dry he couldn’t work up enough moisture to spit.
He rode on, pushing the black straight up the incline. Behind him he could hear Suzannah’s harsh breathing. It sounded more like sobbing, but she was hanging on. Warmth bloomed under his breastbone. She was one helluva woman.
Her horse stumbled, and he shot a glance behind him. Her braid had come loose and strands of wheat-colored hair straggled around her face. Under the hat brim her face looked dead white with exhaustion. But damn, she kneed that mare as if she’d been riding up mountains all her life. For a gently bred Southern belle, she sure was surprising.
At the top of his castle lookout, he dismounted and waited for her. When she came into view she was bent over the saddle horn, gasping for air, and his throat closed up tight. He grabbed his canteen, unscrewed the cap and sloshed some water into his palm. Then he kicked her boot out of the stirrup and stood up on the metal bar to reach her.
“Look up,” he commanded.
She lifted her head and he slathered his wet hand over her face and around the back of her neck. He thought about the front of her neck, where her shirt gapped open, but decided against it.
“Better?”
She nodded. He held his canteen to her lips and suppressed a smile. No Southern lady ever gulped water like she was doing now. Finally she handed the container back to him and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. The gesture was so unladylike it made him want to cheer.
He stepped down from the stirrup and reached up for her. With a hoarse sigh she tipped sideways into his arms, and he carried her to the cluster of sheltering boulders on the rim and settled her on the ground with her back against a flat rock. He unsaddled the horses, dropped the saddles and both saddlebags next to her, grabbed a double handful of dry grass, and wiped the animals down. Then he hand-fed them some oats.
Before he could join her, she surprised him.
“Can you see them anywhere?” She was still winded, but she managed to huff out the question.
He grabbed the canteen and moved to the lip of the plateau. Not a sign of a horse or a rider, not even a telltale puff of dust. Thank the Lord for that; at the moment he could use some food. And some rest.
“No sign of anyone,” he said. But as he ate the jerky he sliced off, he kept one eye on the valley below them.
Suzannah gobbled down the rounds of jerky as fast as he could pare them off. Last night he’d thought she didn’t much like it, but she was sure wolfing it down now. Again he had to smile. Was it possible that if you scratched the surface of an over-refined Southern belle you might find a human being?
He glanced over at her. Not just any human being, he amended, but Suzannah Cumberland.
Brand watched the sun sink behind the far-off hills, looking like a fat orange balloon too weary to stay aloft. He closed his eyelids for a few moments and opened them to a sky tinged with purple, and then gold and orange.
“Be dark soon,” he said. Suzannah nodded tiredly and slid farther down on her bedroll. Pretty soon he’d have to tell her what he’d decided. But not yet. Let her enjoy the sunset.
But she surprised him again. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” She sounded resigned but not frightened, and that made him wonder. Maybe she was just too exhausted to care.
“Yeah. I’m seeing smoke below us. Campfire, most likely. Gonna ride down and investigate.”
“Now? At night?”
“Yes, now. I’d be seen in daylight.”
“How long will you be gone?”
She didn’t ask how long she would be all alone up here, and that raised his eyebrows some more. She could sure surprise him.
“Depends on what I find, whether it’s someone following us or someone else. Suzannah, you ever fire a pistol?”
She popped up on one elbow. “No. Papa would never let me near any of his firearms.”
“Not even during the war, when the Northern army came through?”
“Yankees, you mean,” she said, her voice hardening. “No, not even then. Mama and Hattie kept a loaded rifle in the closet under the staircase, so we felt safe enough. And John...”
“That’s your intended?”
“Yes. John offered to lend me a revolver when he left, but by then the war was all over.”
“Did he teach you how to fire it?”
“No, he didn’t. He was there only two days, and then...then he was gone.”
Brand bit back a snort. “Two days! You agreed to marry a man after knowing him only two days?”
“Well, yes, I did. I grant you it was a very brief courtship, but...you see, there weren’t a great number of eligible men left after the war, and...and Mama never let me forget I was approaching spinsterhood. I guess I let myself get swept off my feet.”
“How old is spinsterhood, Suzannah?”
She hesitated. “I will be twenty-four in June.”
Annoyance tightened his jaw muscles. Two days! Forty-eight hours and he’d managed to leave with her heart in his pocket? This John must be some fast-talking stud. How had the man swept a woman like Suzannah off her feet in just two days?
He decided he didn’t like John Whatever His Name Was one bit. And he was annoyed as hell at her for being swept.
Forget it, Wyler. Her heart and her spinsterhood are none of your concern.
He scrabbled in his saddlebag for his extra revolver. “Suzannah, I’m gonna show you how to shoot this.” He laid it on her blanket. “Be careful. It’s loaded.”
She stared at it, then gazed up at him. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to leave you alone up here without some way to protect yourself.”
“Why not take me with you?”
“No. Too dangerous. I don’t know who’s down there.” He scooted over close to her. “Sit up.”
She shook off her blanket and sat cross-legged beside him. He lifted the Colt and positioned her hands around the butt.
“Hold it up steady, but don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to fire. That’s it. Now, sight down the barrel.”
The weapon wobbled in her grip. “It’s heavy,” she said.
Brand blew out a breath. “That’s all, ‘it’s heavy’? Not ‘I don’t want to do this’ or ‘Don’t go and leave me’ or anything a million other women would say in this situation?” He shook his head in disbelief.
“I don’t guess I am a million other women, Brand.”
“Yeah.” He forced his attention back to the weapon in her hands. “Yes, it’s heavy. That’s why you need both hands. Don’t try to do some fancy quick-draw maneuver—you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.”
“Brand?” She looked into his face, her green eyes widening.
“What?” Now she was gonna cry or beg him not to go.
“When I fire it, will it kick back?”
Whoa.