Eve dismounted in a rush. As she stood and flipped the stirrup up over the saddle horn, Reno’s arm went around her waist, pulling her close. Suddenly she felt the muscular length of his body molded against her from shoulder blades to thighs. A hard ridge of flesh pressed against her hips.
«Cold-blooded is the last thing I am,» Reno said. «Especially with you around to keep me hot.»
First his mustache teased her sensitive ear, then the lip of his tongue, then the edges of his teeth. The restraint of the caresses was at odds with his heavy arousal.
The combination of intense masculine hunger and equally intense self-control was both disarming and compelling to Eve. She had never known a strong man who had exercised any restraint when it came to taking what he wanted.
Except Reno.
Maybe the longer he’s with me, the more he sees I’m net a saloon girl to be bought and sold on a man’s whim.
The idea was profoundly alluring. Eve wanted Reno to look at her and see a woman he could trust and respect, a woman he could build a home with, have children with, share a life with.
A woman he could love.
Maybe when he sees that I keep my word, too, he’ll look at me with more than desire. Eve thought yearningly. Maybe and maybe and maybe…
If I don’t try, I’ll never know.
Table stakes. Five-card draw. A royal heart flush or a bushed heart flush.
Ante up or get out of the game.
As Reno felt the subtle softening of Eve’s body, both hunger and relief swept through him. He hadn’t meant for her to overhear his conversation with Caleb. Nor had he meant to hurt her by rubbing Caleb’s nose in the fact that Eve wasn’t the sweet country innocent she appeared to be. But Caleb hadn’t left Reno any other choice.
«Does this mean Slater is far enough back that you’re not worried about being, er, distracted?» Eve asked.
«No,» Reno admitted reluctantly, releasing her. «I’m afraid we’ll have to have a cold camp tonight, in more ways than one.»
«Is Slater that close?» she asked.
«Yes.»
«Lord, how could he be? After a day on the trail like we had, even our shadows were complaining about following us.»
Reno’s smile gleamed in the moonlight.
«How did he know where to find us after he lost my trail out of Canyon City?» she asked.
«There aren’t that many ways over the Great Divide.»
Eve sighed. «I guess the country isn’t as empty of people as it looks.»
«Oh, it’s empty, all right. I’ve gone months at a time in the high country without seeing a soul. Just the crossroads and passes get kind of crowded.»
«Not to mention human nature,» Eve said, stretching.
«What?»
«Even if we took a hard way over the Great Divide, if Crooked Bear has a woman who’s also keeping company with one of Caleb’s riders, Slater would find out real quick where I’d been.»
«That’s the way I figured it,» Reno said. «We’ve got an edge, though.»
«What?»
«The mustangs. Most of Slater’s boys are riding Tennessee horses.»
«Those horses beat everything on four legs in Canyon City,» Eve pointed out.
Reno’s grin was as hard as his voice.
«We’re not in Canyon City anymore. Our mustangs are going to walk Slater’s Tennessee horses right into the ground.»
9
By day Reno rode with the rifle across his saddle. By night he and Eve slept with the mustangs picketed around their remote, hidden campsites. As a further precaution, he scattered dried branches along the obvious approaches to the campsites.
Several times a day Reno would send Eve and the packhorses on ahead while he backtracked along the trail to a high point. There he would dismount, pull out his spyglass, and study the land they had ridden over.
Only twice did he catch sight of Slater. The first time he had six men with him. The second time he had fifteen.
Reno collapsed the spyglass, mounted, and cantered quickly to catch up with Eve and the packhorses. At the sound of hoofbeats, she turned. He saw the golden flash of her eyes beneath her hat brim and the intense honey color of her hair beneath the hot August sun. He also saw the subtle lines that fatigue and worry had drawn around her curving lips.
When Reno reined in beside Eve, the temptation to lean over and taste once more her subtle blend of salt and sweet and heat almost overwhelmed his control. He scowled savagely at his own growing, unruly hunger for the girl from the Gold Dust saloon.
«Are they closer?» Eve asked anxiously, looking at Reno’s grim face.
«No.»
She licked her dry lips.
Eyes like green crystal followed the tip of her tongue.
«Are they falling back?» she asked hopefully.
«No.»
Her mouth curved down. «I guess those Tennessee horses are tougher than you thought.»
«We’re not in the desert yet.»
Eve made a startled sound and looked at the surrounding land. They were riding down a long, troughlike valley that was bracketed for its entire length by two flat-topped ridges. So little vegetation grew on the ridges that their layered stone bodies showed clearly through the scattered brush and pinon. As a result, the ridges took on a dappled sandy color that owed more to stone than to plants.
«Are you sure we aren’t in the desert?» Eve asked. «It’s so dry.»
Reno looked at her in disbelief.
«Dry? What do you think that is?» he demanded, pointing.
She looked beyond his hand. Winding down the center of the valley was a ribbon of water that was more brown than blue, and so narrow a horse would have to work to get all four feet wet at the same time when crossing it.
«That,» Eve said, «is a poor excuse for a creek. More sand than water.»
With a wry grin, Reno took off his hat, wiped his forehead on his sleeve, and resettled his hat.
«By the time you see that much water again, you’ll think it’s God’s own river,» he promised.
Dubiously Eve looked at the thin, dirty ribbon of water coiling through the dry valley.
«Really?» she asked.
«If we find the shortcut, yes. Otherwise, we’ll see a river that owes more to hell than to God.»
«Rio Colorado?»
Reno nodded. «I’ve known a lot of men who like wild country, but I’ve never known a man to cross the Colorado where it runs through the bottom of the stone maze, and come back to tell the tale.»
A sideways glance at Reno convinced Eve that he wasn’t teasing her. But then, it was too hot and dusty for anyone to have any energy left for teasing.
Even Reno was feeling the heat. The sleeves of his faded blue chambray shirt were rolled up, and the collar was open for several buttons. Sweat glittered like tiny diamonds in the thicket of black hair revealed by the half-undone shirt. Three days on the trail had left a thick, black stubble of beard that made his smile savage rather than reassuring.
No one looking at Reno now would have been misled into thinking him anything but what he was — a hard man with a reputation for coming out on the winning end of gunfights.
Yet despite Reno’s threatening appearance and the currents of sensual tension that coiled invisibly between herself and him, Eve had never slept more securely than she had in the past few days.
For the first time since she could remember, she was not the one who had to sleep lightly, listening for every noise, ready to grab whatever weapon was at hand and defend those who were weaker than she was from whatever predator was prowling the night beyond the campfire or cheap hotel room.
Being able to depend on someone else was such a simple thing, yet the realization that she could depend on Reno kept rippling through Eve like currents through a river, changing old certainties.