WHEN Reno came back from the forest with more dry wood, he looked approvingly at the small, hot, nearly invisible fire Eve had made. Woodsmoke from the hat-sized fire drifted no more than a few feet into the air before it dissipated.
He dumped the fuel near the fire and sat on his heels by the small, cheerful flames.
«Who taught you to make that kind of fire?» he asked.
Eve looked up from the frying pan where bacon sizzled and pan biscuits turned crisp brown in the fat. Since she had returned from the forest dressed in men’s clothing, she hadn’t spoken to Reno unless asked a direct question. She had simply gone about preparing breakfast under his watchful eyes.
«What kind of fire?» Eve asked, looking away from him.
«The kind that won’t attract every Indian and outlaw for fifty miles around,» Reno said dryly.
«One of the few times Donna Lyon took a cane to me was when I put wet wood on the fire. I never did it again.»
Eve didn’t look up as she spoke.
Irritation prodded Reno. He was tired of being made to feel as though he had offended the tender sensibilities of some shy little flower. She was a cardsharp, a cheat, and a hussy, not some cosseted child of strict parents.
«Did the Lyons have a price on their heads?» Reno asked bluntly.
«No. If they had, they wouldn’t have worried about attracting outlaws and gunmen and thieves to their fire, would they?»
Reno made a noncommittal sound.
«They just would have shot a buck and roasted it whole,» Eve continued acidly, «and then robbed everyone who followed the smell of cooking meat back to their camp.»
«Too bad Donna didn’t tell you about the difference between honey and vinegar when it comes to attracting flies.»
«She did. I’ve been using vinegar ever since. What sane girl would want to draw flies?»
A smiled flashed beneath Reno’s dark mustache. For an instant he thought how much Willow and Jessica would have enjoyed Eve’s tart, quick tongue — right up until the time she cheated or lied or stole something from them. Then he would have to explain to them, and to their irate husbands, why he had brought a saloon girl in red silk to their home.
Eve pulled a piece of bacon from the pan and put it on her battered tin plate.
Silently Reno admitted to himself that Eve didn’t look like a slut at the moment. She looked more like some waif blown in by the wind, worn and sad and frayed around the edges. Her clothes had once belonged to a boy, from the look of them — too narrow in the chest and hips, and too loose everywhere else.
«Whose clothesline did you steal that outfit from?» Reno asked idly.
«They belonged to Don Lyon.»
«Lord, he was a small man.»
«Yes.»
Reno stopped, struck by a thought.
«I didn’t see any new graves when I passed by Canyon City’s graveyard on the way in, but you said the Lyons were killed by Raleigh King.»
Eve said nothing in response to the implied question.
«You know, gata, sooner or later I’m going to break you of lying.»
«I’m not a liar,» she said tightly. «I buried the Lyons at our campsite.»
«When?»
«Last week.»
«How?»
«With a shovel.»
With a speed that startled Eve, Reno straightened and grabbed one of her hands. After a single look at her palm, he released her.
«If you handled cards that deftly with a mess of broken blisters,» Reno said, «I’d hate to take cards in a game with you when your hands heal.»
Saying nothing, Eve went back to tending breakfast.
«You should wash them with soap and hot water,» Reno added.
Startled, Eve looked up. «The biscuits?»
He smiled unwillingly.
«Your hands. Jessi says washing wounds prevents infections.»
«I washed before I went to bed last night,» Eve said. «I hate being dirty.»
«You used lilac soap.»
«How did you know? Oh, you found it when you searched my saddlebag.»
«No. Your breasts smelled like spring.»
A wash of pink went up Eve’s cheeks. Her heart turned over as she remembered the feel of Reno’s mouth on her breasts. The fork she had been using on the bacon jerked, and hot grease spattered on the back of her hand.
Before the pain of it registered on Eve, Reno was there, looking to see how badly she had burned herself.
«You’re all right,» he said after a moment. «It will smart for a bit, that’s all.»
Numbly she nodded.
He turned her hand palm up and looked at the abraded skin once more. Silently he took her other hand and glanced at the palm. There was no doubt that her hands had been hard used, and recently.
«You must have worked a long time to chew up your hands like that,» Reno said.
The unexpected gentleness in his voice made Eve’s eyes burn worse than the skin that had been scored by hot grease. A wave of memories swept over her, making her tremble. Preparing the Lyons for burial and then digging their grave was something she would not soon forget.
«I couldn’t leave them like that,» she whispered. «Especially after what Raleigh did…I buried them together. Do you think they minded not having separate graves?»
Reno’s hands tightened over Eve’s as he looked at her bent head. The acute sympathy he felt for her was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. No matter how often he reminded himself that she was a saloon girl, she kept sliding beneath his guard as easily as the fragrance of her lilac soap was absorbed into his body with every breath he took.
He took a deep breath, trying to control his physical reaction to Eve. The breath didn’t help. Her soft, golden hair smelled of the same lilac soap that her breasts did. He had never been especially fond of scent — any scent — but he suspected that lilac would haunt him almost as much as the memory of her nipples rising eagerly to his mouth.
Reno wanted Eve more than he had any woman in a long, long time. But if she discovered his weakness, she would make his life a living hell.
Reno dropped Eve’s hands and turned away to the fire.
«Tell me more about my mine,» he said curtly.
Eve took a deep breath and banished the Lyons from her mind as Donna had taught her to banish all things she couldn’t control.
«Yourhalfof the mine,» Eve said, and waited for the explosion.
It wasn’t long in coming.
«What?» Reno asked, spinning around to face her.
«Without me deciphering the symbols along the trail, you won’t be able to find the mine.»
«Don’t bet on it.»
«I have no choice but to bet on my skill,» she said. «And neither do you. Without me, you’ll never find the mine. You can have all of nothing or half of the gold mine that rightfully belongs to me.»
There was the kind of silence that precedes thunder after the arc of lightning from sky to ground. Then Reno smiled, but there was no humor in the thin curve of his mouth.
«All right,» he said. «Half of the mine.»
She let out a soft rush of air in relief.
«And all of the girl,» Reno added flatly.
Relief congealed into a lump in Eve’s throat.
«What?» she asked.
«You heard me. Until we find the mine, you’ll be my woman whenever I want you, however I want you.»
«But I thought if I told you about the mine, you would —»
«No buts,» Reno said coldly. «I’m getting damned tired of bargaining for what is already mine. Besides, you need me as much as I need you. You wouldn’t last two days out in that desert alone. You need me to —»
«But I’m not what you think I am, I’m —»
«Sure you are,» he interrupted. «Right now you’re wriggling like a worm on a hook, trying to find a way out of keeping your word. Only a cheat would do that.»
Eve closed her eyes.