He was standing over her, and Rayna looked up at him as she accepted the cup. “Thanks.” She took a sip and found no reason to complain, though she would have preferred the shot of whiskey alone.
She peered toward the horses again, and Meade sat on the log next to her.
“You did what you had to do, Rayna,” he said quietly. “You didn’t force them to bushwhack us. If I had to guess, I’d say they’d done this before. They knew those cliffs too well for this to have been a spontaneous act.”
Rayna nodded and forced herself to look away from the bodies in the shadows. “You’re probably right. That doesn’t make knowing I killed him any easier, though.”
“If you hadn’t, I’d be dead now,” he reminded her.
She turned a sad, rueful smile on him. “Drat. You mean I missed the perfect opportunity to get rid of my churlish traveling companion?”
That’s better, Meade thought. Her humor and fighting spirit were starting to return. He’d been watching her all evening and hadn’t been able to bear the haunting sadness in her, although he understood it only too well. “I have been a real ogre, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you have.”
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.
The tender look he was giving her only confused her jumbled emotions even more. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her, and that was obviously all his comforting words and kind looks amounted to. Wishing things could be different between them, Rayna looked into the fire to avoid his soft hazel eyes. “Why do you dislike me so much, Meade? I know I’m too obstinate and I lack certain desirable ladylike traits, but I’m not really a bad person. I’m kind to children and animals.”
He smiled, captivated by the way the light danced over her face. “I’m sure you are. And you’re also absolutely fearless, loyal, and devoted to your family.
As the Apache would say, you have a strong heart.”
“Then you don’t detest me as much as you pretend to?”
“I don’t detest you at all, Rayna,” he said softly.
She looked at him. “Then why do we fight all the time?”
“You make me angry with all the brash, reckless things you do.”
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Like killing Gray Hat? she wondered. No, that hadn’t been brash.
Following Meade after he’d told her to wait had been reckless, but killing Gray Hat to save Meade had been a matter of harsh necessity. “Have you ever killed anyone before?” she asked after a moment.
“Not with a gun.”
She looked at him, puzzled by his cryptic remark. “What does that mean?”
Meade shrugged. “I’m a doctor.”
His answer confounded her even more, but the weariness in his voice made her heart ache for him. “That doesn’t make sense, Meade.”
“Army doctors lose many more lives than they save,” he told her. “There’s too much we don’t know, and the military is finding new ways to kill faster than we can learn how to cure.”
“Not being able to save a wounded man isn’t the same thing as killing him,” she said gently.
This time he was the one who looked into the fire. “That’s not how I feel when I watch someone die or see a one-legged man drink himself to death because I couldn’t find a less brutal way to save his life.”
“That’s not your fault, Meade. You can’t blame yourself for the cruel realities of life.”
“Can’t I?” He looked at her, and the bleakness in his eyes nearly brought tears to Rayna’s.
“No, you can’t. You just care too much.” Unable to stop herself, she reached out and lightly caressed his face. “No one could fault you for that.”
The combination of her soft hand gently touching his face and the com-passionate light in her eyes was too potent for Meade to bear. He took hold of her wrist, but didn’t force her hand away. “Don’t . . . do that, Rayna,” he said softly, his breath hitching in his throat.
She searched his eyes and found a different kind of torment had entered his gaze. “Why not?”
“Because I want very much to kiss you,” he answered before he could stop himself.
She let her hand slide into his. “Then why don’t you?”
“Because . . .” He took a deep breath, trying to shut out the need that coursed through him more strongly than ever before, but it wasn’t going to go away as long as her hand was in his and her lips were close enough to kiss. He stood abruptly, but couldn’t summon any conviction when he told her, “Because what we’re . . . feeling right now is just a reaction to what happened today.”
Rayna didn’t believe that any more than he did. She rose and stepped closer to him. “We hadn’t been nearly ambushed when you kissed me in my hotel room,” she reminded him.
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Meade knew he should move away from her, but he couldn’t. “But you were feeling vulnerable that day.”
“What were you feeling, Meade?”
“More than I should have.”
They stood looking at each other, not touching, and yet feeling each other’s presence more devoutly than either had imagined possible.
My God, Rayna thought with amazement, I’m in love with him. It defied all logic, but it was true. Meade Ashford wasn’t the type of man who fit into the image she had of her life or what she wanted from it, and she certainly didn’t fit into his; he’d made that abundantly clear. But that didn’t change what she felt—or what she wanted.
Without considering the consequences, she took another step closer, cupped his face in her hands, and brought her lips up to his. The feather-light touch sent a jolt of desire through Meade that he couldn’t deny any longer.
Pulling her to him roughly, he deepened the kiss, probing the sweet recesses of her mouth with an urgency that robbed them both of thought.
With a hoarse moan, Rayna pressed against him, then gasped with delight when Meade cupped his hand around the underside of her breast. He pressed wild kisses across her face and down her throat, and when he claimed her mouth again, Rayna thought she might die from the white heat of his fevered kisses. She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his back, clutching at him as though that alone would bring them closer and quench the ache that was spreading through her.
Unable to bear the torture of the clothing that separated them, Meade worked at the buttons of her shirt and pulled it free from her shoulders. As he filled his hands with her breasts and teased the crests to hardness, she cried out in breathless pants and ground her hips into his, inflaming the long, hard ridge of his manhood.
With a rasping moan, Meade tugged at the buckskin cord holding her hair, pulling it free. He dug his fingers into the thick golden braid until it fell loose, and then he pulled her down to the bedroll, kissing her as passionately as she was kissing him. He blazed a fiery trail of kisses down her shoulders to her breasts and rejoiced in the sensuous, writhing movements Rayna made as his lips teased the crests. She dug her hands into his hair and cried out, begging for more.
Exactly what “more” was, Rayna couldn’t have said. She knew only that the fire raging inside her had to be extinguished. The ache had become so deliciously painful that she couldn’t think. Rational thought had deserted her, leaving only instinct and need. She had never done this before, never felt such intense passions, but as in everything she did, she held nothing back. She gave completely, and if it was wrong, she would live with the 183
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consequences, whatever they might be. Her eager hands danced over the muscular ridges of his torso trying to give back every pleasure she received from him.