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  “Hot coffee,” she mumbled. “Will you build a fire?”

  “Sure, we’ll have a fire. And some whiskey. I think we both need it.”

  “I feel so sick about your…about Nita.” Her voice seemed to come from somewhere outside herself.

  “Yeah. Me, too.” In a constricted voice he added, “Maybe if I’d—” He broke off. “Never mind. Let’s just ride.”

  She nodded again, and when the horse stepped forward she commanded her stiff fingers to grip the reins.

  Cord felt the tug of the lead rope he’d tied to his saddle, but even though he knew rationally that Sage was still seated on the horse behind him, he twisted to check. Yeah, still there. He just didn’t know for how long. Her head drooped forward, her chin brushing her chest. A more thoroughly defeated-looking figure he’d never seen. Worse than some outlaws he’d brought in.

  Goddamn, he felt sorry for her. Not because she was bone-tired and damp and her toes were probably freezing in those wet boots, but because he could see how much Nita’s death had affected her. Probably shook her confidence in herself as a doctor right down to her britches.

  Part of him wished he’d brought anyone but her up the mountain. What had he been thinking? She was a green doctor, and not only that, she was a woman.

  Another, larger part of him was glad he’d found her. Just starting out on her medical practice as she was, she was bound to lose a patient sooner or later; in a funny way he wanted to be the one with her when it happened. She took the loss hard, and something inside him wanted to ease the pain.

  At the same time, he was gut-wrenchingly sad about Nita. He’d been responsible for her for four years, since she was just a kid riding hell-for-leather out of Morelia after her father had beaten her. Cord had felt responsible for her ever since.

  He felt responsible for her death. He’d liked her well enough, and she’d died because he’d been so hell-bent on getting that bastard Suarez. Cord hadn’t known then about Suarez and Nita. That they were lovers.

  It was all twisted up inside him. The bounty money for turning the murderer over to the authorities had kept food in Nita’s pantry and store-bought dresses in her closet. Maybe Cord would feel better if she hadn’t tried to run off with the outlaw. Maybe things would have turned out differently if Cord had given her a real marriage. If he’d loved her. Slept with her. Given her children.

  Or maybe in the three days it took to get back to the cabin, he’d fallen half in love with someone else.

  Okay, more than half.

  His heart ached for Nita and for Sage. What kind of a man did that make him?

  He didn’t feel very good about any of it, he admitted. He hadn’t had the right to touch Sage when they’d started up into the wilderness. He thought about that as his horse slogged on down the muddy trail toward civilization.

  Now the problem was that thinking about Sage—about touching her again, holding her—was the only thing that kept him going. That and Antonio Suarez.

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time they reached the secret place on the east side of the mountain wilderness that Cord sometimes used for a camp, he was about done in. His mind craved respite from the thoughts that haunted him; his body craved sleep. A glance back at Sage told him she was at the end of her strength as well, hanging on by sheer willpower. He reined in his exhausted mare.

  He liked this camp. It was well-hidden, sheltered in a grotto of overgrown deer fern within a thick stand of hemlock and pine. The rain had stopped, and the predawn air smelled so sharp and green it made his eyes water.

  The effort required to lift his leg to dismount surprised him; his muscles were cold and tired. Maybe he was getting old. He ached in places he’d never been aware of before.

  Sage sagged over the pommel of her saddle, both hands still gripping the reins. Gently he pried her fingers away from the leather, then tugged her sideways so she toppled off the horse into his arms. Even fully clothed, she weighed no more than a sack of cornmeal.

  She curled against his chest, tucked her head under his chin and made a mumbled noise. By damn, she was sound asleep.

  He held her without moving, listening to her breathing, aware of the faint thump of her heartbeat through the damp jacket. Stepping carefully so she wouldn’t wake up, he managed to tie both horses to an alder sapling using one hand, then walked into the small clearing he’d hacked out three summers ago. With the toe of one boot, he rolled the scattered kettle-size rocks into a rough firepit circle.

  When he’d kicked together enough twigs and small branches to start a fire, he thought about putting her down.

  But he didn’t. He liked having her in his arms. Liked it so much he tramped three times around the camp perimeter with no particular chore in mind, just holding the soft, warm burden against his chest. Finally he snagged the blanket he’d tied under his rain poncho behind his saddle, flapped it open as best he could, and spread it close to the fire. Kneeling, he settled the sleeping form in his arms on top of the warm, dry wool. She didn’t even whimper, just rolled into a tight ball.

  The kindling blazed and snapped. He dumped on dry pinecones and chunks of wood he kept stashed inside a burned-out stump, then unsaddled the horses and fed them oats he’d kept dry in his saddlebag. He should get out of his wet clothes and eat something, but he wasn’t hungry.

  Not for food, anyway.

  He retrieved another blanket, shucked off his boots and the rest of his clothes and turned his backside to the fire. Nothing better in the world than heat on an expanse of chilled skin. Might be what Sage needed, too.

  “Doc?”

  There was no sound but the hissing of the fire.

  “Sage, wake up. You’ve got to take off your—”

  She groaned and wriggled her body into an even tighter lump.

  He spread the rain poncho near the fire, gathered the four corners of the blanket she lay on and lifted the entire bundle closer to the warmth. Then he knelt beside her.

  “Sage? Sage, wake up.” He waited, then removed her boots. Her socks were still dry, so he left them on, but he pulled off her jacket and unsnapped her damp riding skirt.

  Still she slept. She’d get chilled if she lay all night like this. Should he stop? Go ahead and undress her?

  To hell with propriety. He slid the denim skirt over her hips and down her legs, then started undoing her shirt fastenings. Half-asleep, she tried to help, but her fingers couldn’t work the buttons through the holes.

  Her undergarments were cold, but not wet. He wanted to remove them, too, but knew he didn’t dare. It was risky enough to strip off her wet things and warm her up with his own body heat.

  He draped their damp garments on an alder sapling to dry, propped both pairs of boots by the fire. She didn’t even twitch.

  Thank God Suarez was on the other side of the mountain. Cord couldn’t keep his eyes open one more minute.

  Without another thought of the outlaw or Nita or the whole damn mixed-up state of his heart, he stretched out beside Sage, folded the warm blanket over their bodies and pulled her close.

  Some change in her breathing brought Cord out of a sound sleep to find her blue-violet eyes open and looking steadily into his. They faced each other, close but not touching. His arm rested over the mound of her hip. He should move away, but he didn’t. He just plain didn’t want to.

  A shaft of sunlight touched her hair, highlighting the tangled dark strands with auburn. He said the first thing that came into his mind. “You’ve got red hair.” The observation was so irrelevant he groaned aloud.

  “My grandmother had red hair.”

  Cord wanted to tell Sage how beautiful her hair was, but something stopped him. Instead, he swallowed and said, “The sun is up.”

  Her slow, steady breathing sent intermittent warm puffs into his face. If he opened his mouth, he could almost swallow her exhaled air.

  “How do you feel?” His question hovered in the quiet, sun-warmed morning air like a butterfly uncertain where t
o land. Tension coiled in his chest as he waited for her response.

  “I feel miserable.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “I feel responsible. I feel awful, just sick that I couldn’t have done more. How arrogant of me, to think that I could save a life. Death is much stronger than I am.”

  “Only if you let it be. That is where the real battle is—inside us.”

  She stared at him.

  “I feel lousy, too,” he added. “She tried to shield him. Suarez, I mean. Nita caught the bullet he meant for me.”

  “What do you do, then, when you’ve failed and you feel miserable?”

  Cord hesitated. “I…look for ways to feel better. Any way I can.”

  She didn’t blink. “What ways?” Her eyes begged him for help.

  “Whiskey sometimes. Doing things that feel good.”

  “What things?”

  “The things I’ve been showing you—feeling the wind in your hair, swimming in the rain, smelling the grass. Listening to a meadowlark some mornings makes me glad I’m alive. Lying close to a warm fire, like we are now. And…” He decided not to finish that particular thought.

  “And?” she prompted. “Tell me the rest, Cord. Please. And what?”

  He thought about evading the question, or just plain lying. But she was asking how to live in the world where, God knew, things could be ugly. Where people died no matter how hard you worked to save them. Where hearts and bodies got pretty well beat up along the way.

  He wouldn’t lie to her.

  “And…being with a woman.”

  He caught a flicker of something in her eyes. Interest? Disapproval? He couldn’t tell. It was soul-jarring enough to think that he was baring his most private thoughts to her.

  “Being with a woman,” she murmured. “Does that really help?”

  “Yeah. It sure as hell does.” It was all he could do to think of something more to say. “It…yeah.”

  That’s all he could come up with, lying next to her, her body warm and drowsy with sleep. It didn’t feel like the right time for a lot of talk.

  Her lips opened, then closed, as if she’d changed her mind about something. And then her voice came to him, soft and clear as sunlight.

  “Show me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Show her! Had she gone loco? He’d bet his next bounty money she didn’t know what she was asking. Sage West might be a good doctor, but she knew next to nothing about the ways of a man and a woman.

  She gazed at him without blinking, just waited with what he’d come to recognize as her yes-or-no look. He was trapped. Worse, he was tempted.

  He moved his gaze down her torso, lingering on the place where her thighs joined. He couldn’t do it. He wanted to, but even a randy loner had rules. One, he didn’t bed other men’s wives, no matter how tempting the offer. And two, he didn’t take virgins.

  Besides, “Show me” wasn’t exactly an invitation, it was more like a challenge or a request, like “Teach me to rope a mustang” or “Help me improve my marksmanship.” Sage wasn’t begging. She was just tired and shaken, and needed comfort. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, but he could understand the appeal of another pleasure lesson to ease her troubled spirit.

  The problem was, that particular lesson was one he couldn’t—wouldn’t—deliver under the circumstances.

  But there is one thing you could do.

  Oh, Lord. She might not like it. But if she did, she’d have the knowledge for the rest of her life. It was a gift he could give her. If she was willing.

  Hell and damn, he was growing hard just thinking about it.

  “Don’t move,” he said. Surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded, he cleared his throat. “Just lie still.”

  Slowly he drew the covering blanket away, letting the bright sunlight wash over her body.

  “Feel good?”

  “Yes. Feels nice,” she murmured. “Warm all over, even my knees.”

  “Take off the rest of your clothes.” He wanted to do it for her, but he didn’t dare touch her yet. As it was, he knew he’d have a hard time holding himself back at the end.

  “Socks, too?”

  He cleared his throat again. “Yeah.”

  She sat up, unbuttoned her lace-trimmed chemise and let it drop off her shoulders, then wriggled out of her underdrawers. Her lack of modesty was another surprise, until he remembered she was a physician. She’d seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of bodies; she was refreshingly accepting of her own naked state and not shocked by his. In fact, she studied his erection with clinical interest.

  Yep, she was a doctor right down to her bare pink toes.

  She stretched out her body in the hot sunshine, raising her arms over her head and arching like a sated cat. In that moment Cord knew he was in trouble. Big trouble.

  He smothered a groan. She was making it very tough to remember that second rule.

  His groin tightened and an ache spread below his belly.

  “Close your eyes,” he ordered.

  “You’re embarrassed,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “You don’t want me to look at your penis?”

  Cord shifted on the blanket. “Later. Right now, don’t look at anything, just feel.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “But,” she added, “it is a very nice penis.”

  Lord help me. In all the years since he’d grown to manhood, he’d never had a conversation with a woman like this one.

  “Now what?” She spoke the words under her breath.

  Cord put his fingers on her bare shoulder. “I’m going to show you something.”

  He smoothed his hands slowly over her body, moving from her chin to her rib cage, her belly, down her thighs to her ankles, even her toes. He did it once more, then again, even more slowly. Under his fingers her skin warmed, and he could feel the muscles in her shoulders and stomach begin to relax.

  Finally, he brought one hand to her small, pointed breast and cupped it, brushing his thumb over the rose-brown nipple. She drew in a long, slow breath and released it in a sigh.

  “You like that?” he whispered.

  She nodded, eyes still shut.

  “How about this?” He flicked one finger in a lazy rhythm back and forth across the soft bud. Her sharp inhalation told him everything he needed to know.

  “And this?” He bent forward, drew his tongue in a narrowing circle over the warm flesh.

  Her breath quickened, and Cord smiled. His own body ached for completion, but it didn’t matter; what did matter was Sage’s pleasure. He licked the hardening nipple, then closed his lips over the tip and sucked gently. When she moaned, he moved to her other breast and began again. Lord, he was enjoying this as much as Sage was.

  Nothing had ever felt so good before. The sun beating down on his bare back was nothing compared to this. Her skin was heated and silky under his mouth, and a faint female scent clung to her, a combination of wild thyme and wet meadow grass. She arched upward, bringing her breasts higher, closer to his seeking tongue.

  Yes. She wanted more. Oh, God, yes.

  His own breathing grew irregular. While he licked one breast he circled his fingertip on the other, then moved his hand down over the swell of her stomach to the soft dark hair between her thighs. Her breath caught for an instant, then resumed, the sound dry and uneven.

  He slipped one finger inside her. Lifting his lips from her breast, he sought her mouth, soft and yielding, her tongue hot. Shy at first, then bold. Hungry.

  “Sage,” he murmured. She was wet. Ready.

  “Don’t stop,” she breathed. “Don’t st—”

  He moved his finger inside her, and she made a sound against his lips. “That’s it,” he encouraged. “Just let go, Sage. Let go.”

  “Kiss me, Cord. It feels so wonderful. Kiss me. Kiss me.”

  He bent lower, brushing his lips over her skin, tasting salt and sweet together, until he brought his mouth to her female center.
Her soft cries rose into the hushed morning; his breathing grew heavy and erratic. With his tongue he flicked and teased and probed while she writhed, opening her legs, then raising one knee to allow him greater access. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. Watching her hands move like that almost shattered his control.

  He wanted to prolong it for her, but he couldn’t handle much more. He fought the impulse to drag her pliant body under him and plunge deep within her. He swirled his tongue against the small, hard bud of her womanhood and at the same time gradually pushed one finger into her entrance and beyond, very slowly, until it was fully inside her. She had no maidenhead.

  A knife edge of male jealousy coursed through him until he realized it was probably because she’d ridden horses all her life. She’d never taken a man inside her; that much he knew.

  He moved his finger provocatively, then felt her slick passage walls squeeze convulsively around it, pulsing again and again while he tongued her inner lips.

  She gasped, arched her back, then went still, her mouth opening in delight.

  “Good,” he whispered. “It’s supposed to be like that.”

  She moaned a response he didn’t comprehend, then lay quiet while he withdrew his finger, curved his hand over her mound and kissed and stroked her belly.

  At last she opened her eyes, and he touched himself deliberately. “There’s another way, too. And don’t say ‘Show me,’ Sage, because I’m more than halfway there now and you’re going to be sore enough.”

  She stretched both arms toward him, encircled his neck and pulled his face close. “Thank you.” The whispered words brushed his cheek. “I think you are…beautiful. I want to watch you.”

  Cord’s breath hitched. Watch him? Lord in heaven.

  He closed his hand over himself and in three quick strokes spilled his seed onto the ground.

  She touched him with her forefinger, then brought it to her lips. Then without a word, she pulled his quivering body close, pressing the engorged tips of her breasts to his chest.