High Country Hero Read online

  She was a plum that didn’t know what ripe meant. He’d sure as hell like to show her, but some inner voice told him to stay clear. He couldn’t say why exactly, but the message was burning into his brain. Touch her and you’ll regret it the rest of your days.

  A tight feeling crawled into his chest, spreading until he could scarcely suck air into his lungs. He wet his lips, then went to check the horses again.

  Sage heard him moving around the camp. Her lids refused to open and after a while she gave up trying and just listened. His low voice spoke bits of nonsense to the horses, and then his boots thumped back toward the fire and stopped close by.

  An irresistible urge to reach out and pat one leather toe seized her, but her arm wouldn’t budge. Poor old boots. They didn’t get any special attention the way the horses did. The thought was so irrational she wondered if she’d had too much whiskey.

  Beside her a blanket flapped, and the next thing she heard was measured breathing at her back. He’d bedded down next to her without even asking permission! He lay so close she could feel his exhalations on the nape of her neck.

  In spite of herself, she smiled. Somehow she didn’t mind. Didn’t mind at all.

  Cord waited until he couldn’t stand it any longer, then he reached one arm across her midsection, carefully spread his fingers and pulled her back against his chest so her spine pressed his breastbone. She murmured something that sounded like “dress.”

  He didn’t care what she said, just as long as she didn’t move. He didn’t want to think too much about what he was doing. He was like any other man—they all put their pants on one leg at a time, didn’t they? He was having a perfectly normal male reaction to being this close to a female.

  But she wasn’t like any other female. Yeah, he wanted her, but he’d do nothing. He didn’t have the right.

  Sage nestled against his warm, solid body and sighed with pleasure. How good it felt to be near him. To touch him.

  He had shown her something today she had never really thought about before. Pain was inevitable in life; suffering was optional. The key—for him, anyway—lay in offsetting the bad feelings with good feelings. Opening oneself to…well, pleasure. Smelling the roses along the way. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may not be here.

  She could never do that—live in such a hedonistic manner. She was here on God’s earth to relieve others’ suffering, not waste time enjoying what felt good at the moment.

  She liked this man, Cord Lawson. Respected him, even.

  But his way was not her way. He had no obligations to anyone other than himself, while she had a sworn duty to put other people, her patients, first.

  She closed her eyes and tried to let her thoughts swirl away with her fatigue. She imagined the blood flowing in her body, the life-giving plasma pushed along in her arteries with every beat of her heart. The line between life and death was so fine; one minute a person breathed in and out, swallowed, cried. The next minute he didn’t.

  In her mind’s eye she saw her baby brother lying gray and motionless in the cradle her father had made of woven willow boughs. Alive, and then suddenly not alive.

  On impulse she rose up on one elbow and stared down at the man lying beside her, sound asleep. His breathing was slow and quiet, his heart pumping in regular rhythm under his shirt. She could see the blue cotton flutter with each beat.

  She studied his closed eyelids, the black lashes against his tanned skin. Then she leaned down, tipped her head to bring her ear close to his chest and listened to the air pull in, out, in.

  She stretched out her hand and laid her palm on the spot. Under her flesh his heart pulsed, again, again. Warmth from his body crept up her arm. Her fingers tingled with it.

  He was alive…and foreign. Male to her female.

  Did other women watch a man at night, when no one would know? Why did they? Why did she watch Cord—to make sure he was alive?

  Of course he was alive. He was far too alive, like a hot coal dropped into her sterile, cool existence. Something that must be handled carefully.

  Her gaze came to rest on his mouth. Closed in sleep, the well-formed lips looked firm. She wanted to touch him there, see if his lips were warm or cool, but she dared not. They were warm, she knew. Even though he was a stranger, aloof at times. Hard. Solitary. Everything about the man seemed warm to her.

  It was such an odd contrast—the ice man with a heart of fire—that she almost laughed aloud. She touched her fingers to her own lips, felt the sigh of her breath on her fingertips. She, too, was warm. Alive.

  The thought made her smile again. She was twenty-five years old, and just now waking up.

  By midmorning Sage had recovered enough of her physical strength to keep up the pace Cord set through the thick forest and down the dry side of the mountain. As they moved steadily eastward, the trees began to thin out as the trail climbed once more to the timberline.

  By noon, Cord had stopped only once to rest the horses. He pushed them hard.

  But he pushed himself harder. Since sunup he had seemed preoccupied.

  When he slowed at a sharp switchback, she called out. “How much farther?”

  “Another couple of hours.”

  Sage eyed him. “By crow or horseback?”

  “Straight ahead and steady.” There was no hint of laughter in his voice. He was worried about something. The wounded man, perhaps?

  “Who is with this injured person now?”

  “An old Indian woman. A friend,” he added at Sage’s sudden intake of breath. “They call her Two Branches. She’s a medicine woman.”

  “She will resent the intrusion of a white doctor.”

  “She’s the one who sent me for a doctor,” he said shortly. “Said ‘big medicine’ was needed for the white man’s evil.”

  “Evil!”

  “To the Paiute, a bow and arrow is an honorable weapon. A rifle is evil.”

  A chill swept over her, even though sweat trickled down her neck. “Cord?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if it’s too late? What if…”

  He said nothing. He moved his mare into the lead position and Sage watched the sway of the animal’s rump ahead of her. Frustration tightened her rib cage. How could he cut himself off from things like that? Just keep riding as if…as if it didn’t matter?

  “Cord! Cord, wait.” She kicked her own mare hard and caught up with him. His dark hat was tipped low against the sun.

  “Cord?”

  When he turned toward her, she wished she hadn’t spoken. Tears shone in his eyes.

  Stunned into silence, she reined up.

  He didn’t say a word, just pulled his horse to a stop and sat there looking straight ahead. After a long while he looped the reins around the pommel, dismounted with the slow, easy motion she’d grown used to, and came toward her.

  She dismounted as well, and moved to meet him. “What is it?”

  He said nothing, just kept coming. When he reached her he stepped in close and folded his arms around her. “Don’t move,” he said in a quiet voice. “And don’t talk. Just…be here.”

  “Cord, it is highly unusual to embrace one’s doctor on the trail like this.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a low sigh. His arms tightened around her and she heard him swallow.

  “Yeah,” he said again. “I know.”

  She waited, sensing instinctively he would speak when he wished to and not before. For some reason he needed her at this moment.

  “You reminded me of something I didn’t want to think about,” he said at last.

  She nodded against his hard, warm shoulder. “Something that hurts,” she said. “The pain is in your eyes.”

  He set her away from him far enough to look into her face. His eyes were wet. “I need you,” he said. “Don’t ask questions, just let me…”

  “Let you what?”

  “Hold on to something, Doc.”

  “Is this another one of your ‘feel-good lessons’?” She
spoke the words gently, hoping to ease the tension she heard in his voice.

  “God, yes,” he breathed. “Only this time you have to come with me.” He pulled her forward, rested his lips against her forehead. “Sage.”

  She looked up, into his eyes, and with a low murmur he covered her mouth with his.

  Chapter Nine

  She’d been wrong. At the first touch of his lips moving over hers, asking and then taking, Sage knew she had missed something in life. Something so simple, so elemental she marveled how she could have lived twenty-five years without discovering it. And now that she knew, how could she live beyond this glorious moment without having it again? And again.

  Cord’s mouth was warm and dry, his tongue hot and so commanding her belly curled into a shaky knot of desire. With each passing second the sensations spiraled—the feel of his mouth, the taste of him, the heat. The scalding search for more. Deeper. Slower.

  No man had ever touched her like this, taken her body and her soul and given them back to her suffused with a sense of belonging. A heady, uninhibited joy built inside her until she wanted to weep.

  He broke free, groaned and kissed her again. Her breasts, even her most intimate place, swelled, aching with hunger.

  At last Cord set her away from him and tried to control his ragged breathing. She swayed on her feet, her eyes still closed, a faint smile curving her mouth. The look on her upturned face made his insides turn over.

  “This is only a horseback guess, but I’d say you enjoyed that.”

  She ran the pink tip of her tongue over her lips. “I am indebted to you, Mr.—Cord.”

  His breath hitched. “Indebted? You’re the first woman who’s ever said that after I kissed her. Indebted for what?”

  She tipped to one side and he tightened his fingers on her shoulders, steadying her.

  “For things you cannot possibly imagine.”

  Oh, he could imagine, all right. He felt a booted foot kick him hard in the gut. She wanted him. He’d shown her something about herself she hadn’t known before—that she could feel passion. And it had knocked her plumb off balance.

  But he had no right. She wasn’t a cheap bit of calico. Right this minute, though, he’d give anything if she were. Lord God, deliver me from Good Women!

  When she spoke again, her words made sense, but her voice sounded soft and unfocused, as if she was dreaming. “Perhaps we should mount and ride?”

  Mount and ride? She had no idea what those words conjured in his imagination. His erection swelled. He stepped away so she wouldn’t feel it, then wished he hadn’t. He wanted her to feel it—feel him. Wanted to push close to her, so close she would…

  “Yeah, we’d best keep moving.” He took a deep breath and cleared the hoarseness from his throat. “Cabin’s about an hour ahead.”

  “Cabin?”

  He turned her toward her mare, placed the reins in her fingers. He could boost her up, but he didn’t dare lay his hand on that rounded, inviting behind.

  “A miner’s shack. Somebody built it and abandoned it. I use it as a place to hole up when… sometimes.”

  “When what?” She mounted without effort, swinging a long, skirt-swathed leg up and over the horse’s rump. Cord tried not to watch.

  “When I’m cold. Worn-out.” When I’m so lonesome I start talking to rocks and pine trees.

  “Does anyone else ever go there?”

  He clenched his jaw tight. The question caught him off guard, and for a moment his chest felt like somebody had stomped all over it with spurred boots. “Not usually.”

  “But my patient with the gunshot wound is there now, waiting for us, is that correct?”

  Cord pulled himself into the saddle and met her clear-eyed gaze. “That’s correct.”

  “Then I shall compose my mind about what has happened between us and tend to business. Get up there, Ginger.”

  He fell in beside her, near enough to detect the faint scent of pine on her skin but not so close he’d be tempted to reach out and touch her.

  No good. He moved ahead. It was safer not to look at her, either. Damn, he’d never ached so bad for a woman before. Why should she affect him so strongly? There were other women. For him there would always be women. They made him feel good, whole and worth something more than just a smart tracker with a quick gun hand. In return, he made them happy, or so they said.

  There wasn’t a female on this earth he couldn’t replace or ride away from.

  Except for this one. He liked her. Liked her quickness and her wit. He liked her body, too, but the connection he felt had more to do with minds than bodies.

  Was that why kissing her had left him feeling like he’d been run over by a stampeding herd? Because it was her—Sage—clinging to him, opening to him, not some nameless piece of skirt who didn’t matter?

  Sage mattered. The question was why?

  They reached a lazy stream, only ankle deep, and with each splash of the horses’ hooves the puzzle circled about in his head. Why? Why? Why?

  Suddenly Cord straightened. Hell’s bells. You damn fool. You’ve got the lady doctor stuck so deep in your craw you can’t think clearly.

  That was dangerous in itself. With a double-talking murderer like Suarez somewhere out there, it was suicidal. Especially after what had happened the first time Cord had found him.

  Them.

  Despite the hot sun on his back, a prickle of gooseflesh peppered his forearms. Best not dwell on it now. Just get to the cabin and take it one step at a time.

  “Tonight,” Sage said with conviction in her voice.

  Cord shot her a look over his shoulder. “How’s that?”

  “I…I was thinking out loud.”

  “About tonight?”

  “And other matters. My patient, for one.”

  He looked back again. “What about tonight?”

  She hesitated, wetting her lips. “I was wondering what I was going to do.”

  “You mean where you’re going to sleep?” “No. That is, not exactly. More like whether I am going to sleep.”

  He fell back to keep pace beside her. “You slept fine last night. Like a cat full of cream.”

  “I had less to occupy my mind last night.”

  Cord swallowed. “You want some advice, Doc? Don’t think so much.”

  “That is easy for you to say. For you, nothing is at risk.”

  It surprised him that she was so direct. Most women would pussyfoot around what she was facing.

  “Think so, do you?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I think so.”

  The fragrance of pine and dry grass hung on the breeze, and Sage’s heart lifted. The air smelled sweet and sharp and clean, and she enjoyed breathing it in. She was beginning to notice things, small things. Pleasant scents. The pretty sound of creek water burbling over stones, or the twing-towit of a meadow bird. Things that felt good—the warm sun on the backs of her elbows, the puff of cool wind against her cheek. Cord’s mouth on hers. His hands…

  She had entirely too much to think about! This wasn’t as simple and uncomplicated as a textbook on anatomy or diseases of the liver, which she could read and understand in a matter of hours. Her head was full of him and the unexpected things he made her feel.

  Questions nagged at her. Had he kissed many women? Perhaps even taken them to bed?

  Had they been soft and pretty and willing, or had he molded them to his desire with touches and kisses like the ones he had given her?

  Oh, what did it matter if there were others? Her concern was about herself, why she stood here so close to him she could smell the faint odor of coffee on his breath, wanting him to touch her again.

  Lord knew, she would not sleep one single minute tonight.

  The trail wound on ahead of them, meandering through a stand of shiny-needled firs, around a copse of salal and vine maple, and then it suddenly petered out. Cord kept moving forward at the same steady pace. Obviously he knew exactly where he was, knew every inch of th
e ground over which he rode.

  Sharp-edged fear cut into Sage’s belly. If he moved out of her sight, she would be hopelessly lost. She kicked Ginger’s flanks and trotted forward until she rode beside him.

  The cabin appeared out of thin air. One moment she was guiding her mount around a vine-covered fallen log, the next she spied a structure that blended into the landscape so perfectly it was nearly invisible. A stone’s toss from the timberline, the weathered structure of rough-hewn wood nestled within the last thinning stand of fir and jack pine. Beyond it, the bare mountain rose, melting into a sky washed with rose and peach as the sun sank.

  Sage slowed her laboring mare. What a godfor-saken place. She watched Cord approach the shack and tie his horse to a graying porch post, then stride through the plank door and disappear inside.

  By the time she had dismounted and retrieved her black leather medical bag from behind the saddle, Cord stood in the doorway, waiting.

  “Still alive?” she intoned as she climbed the porch step.

  He took her elbow. “Barely. The Indian woman, Two Branches, left water and some pemmican, but…”

  Sage nodded. “He’s too weak to eat.”

  An empty place yawned in her stomach. She calculated that six days had passed while the patient waited for Cord to return with help. Six days with a gunshot wound. She prayed it had not festered.

  “Where is…?”

  “In here.” He pushed aside a makeshift curtain of four mismatched flour sacks stitched together. Sage drew in a breath and tried to calm her thudding heartbeat.

  Late-afternoon sunlight dappled the narrow bed under the single window. A worn patchwork quilt mounded over a motionless figure beneath it. Her patient, she surmised.

  The silence was not a good sign.

  Cord moved forward and knelt by the head of the bed. “I’ve brought the doctor,” he murmured.

  No response. Cord’s gaze met hers in a long look, but as she lifted the quilt he glanced away.

  No. Oh, no.

  The figure was breathing. That was the first thing that registered. The second was the sound—a faint, dry rattle punctuated by long pauses.