A velvety muzzle nudged Janna gently, then more insistently. She started and realized that she had been staring at Ty once more, her breath held in anticipation of…something. Yet there was nothing to anticipate now but one more day, one day worse than yesterday, more light sliding through her outstretched fingers, more darkness pooling in her empty soul.
With a stifled cry Janna looked away from Ty again. She tried to make herself breathe deeply. It was impossible. Her body was so taut that she vibrated like a bow being drawn by too powerful an archer, the wood bent so harshly that breakage was only a breath away…so she refused to breathe.
I can't be with Ty like this. I can't bear it. It's worse than being alone. It's like watching Papa die all over again, all the life, all the possibilities, all the laughter, all the love, everything sliding away beyond my reach.
Something thumped soundly against Janna's chest. She made a startled noise and looked down. The thump had come from Zebra's muzzle. The mare was getting impatient for her mistress's attention.
"H-hello, girl," Janna said, stammering slightly, unable to prevent the telltale trembling.
The catch in Janna's voice made Ty feel as though a knife had flicked over an open wound. Like her body, her voice said that she wanted him until she shook with it. He wanted her in the same way, wanted her until he felt as if his guts were being drawn through the eye of a red-hot needle.
And he wouldn't take her.
"Easy, son," Ty said, making his voice as gentle as he could under the circumstances.
Lucifer eyed Ty warily, telling the man that his attempt to be reassuring hadn't been very convincing.
"Let's take a look at that wound," Ty murmured, smoothing his hands over the stallion's warm hide. "Easy, son, easy. I'm not going to hurt you."
The echo of Ty's reassurances to Janna by the pool pierced the silence between the two of them with uneasiness. He refused to look at her, knowing that if he did he would see in her eyes the sweet, consuming wildfire of her passion. He had never touched a woman as he had Janna that night; even the memory of it brought an almost shocked disbelief…and a searing hunger to know her that way again, to bathe in her like a warm pool, washing away the impurities of the years in which he hadn't known that he could touch his own soul by soaring deep within Janna's sensual generosity.
"You'll have a scar," Ty said tightly, looking at Lucifer's haunch, "but that's little enough for a bullet wound to leave as a calling card."
Silently Ty wondered what wound would be left on his own life by the much softer, much more agonizing brush of a satin butterfly's wings.
"Soon Lucifer will be strong enough to go to Wyoming," Janna said, speaking her worst fear aloud.
"Yes." Ty's tone was curt. 'fYou won't be able to take much except clothes, but your books should be safe enough here. When things settle down in the territory, you can…" His voice died. "I'll see that you get your books. I'll see that you get everything you need for the kind of life you deserve."
Janna turned away from Ty, hiding her face, not letting him see in her expression the decision she had made not to go to Wyoming. She really had no choice but to stay. Instinctively she knew it would be easier to live alone in the valley than anywhere on earth with Ty always within reach, never touching her.
"Janna?" he asked roughly.
After a few seconds she said calmly, "I'll do what has to be done."
It sounded like agreement, yet…
Ty stared at the back of Janna's head and wished that he could read her mind as easily as she seemed to read the animals and the clouds. And himself.
"The sooner we start, the better," he said.
Janna said nothing.
"We should get out of here before the Army decides to move against Cascabel."
She nodded as though they were discussing nothing more important than the shape of distant clouds.
"We'll have to take it slow until I can find a horse to ride. Even if Lucifer would accept me as a rider-which I doubt-he should have another week or so without any strain." Ty waited. Janna said nothing. "Janna?"
Auburn hair flashed in the sun as she turned to face him. Her eyes were as clear as rain-and haunted by elusive shadows.
"Yes, it would be better for Lucifer not to have to take the strain of a rider for a few more days."
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
Janna hesitated, then shrugged. "The first days will be slow and dangerous. Walking is always slower than riding."
"You're coming with me," Ty said bluntly.
' 'Of course. Lucifer would never leave the valley without Zebra," Janna said, turning away again, stroking the mare's dust-colored hide with loving hands.
"And Zebra won't leave the valley without you," Ty said.
"She never has before."
Ty's scalp prickled. Every instinct he had told him that Janna was sliding away from him, eluding his attempts to hold her nearby. She was vanishing as he watched.
"Say it," he demanded.
"Say what?"
"Say that you're coming to Wyoming with me."
Janna closed her eyes. Hidden beneath Zebra's mane, her hands clenched into fists. "I'm leaving the valley with you."
"And you're coming to Wyoming with me."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Force me to lie to you."
"What does that mean? You can't stay here forever and you know it!"
"I can't stay on your brother's ranch in Wyoming, either."
"You won't have to stay there forever."
"Just long enough to set a marriage snare for some man who's too stupid to know the difference between true silk and an ordinary sow's ear?" Janna offered bitterly.
"Dammit, that's not what I said!"
"You don't have to say it. I did." She swung onto Zebra's back with a quick motion that was eloquent of wild emotions barely restrained. "I promised to help you get your stallion. You promised to teach me how to please a man. Those promises were made and kept on Black Plateau. Wyoming was no part of it."
Abruptly Zebra exploded into a gallop.
In seething silence Ty watched while the mare swept toward the far end of the valley where Indian ruins slowly eroded back into the stony land from which they had come. Janna had spent a lot of time in the ancient place since they had brought the stallion into the valley. Ty had thought J anna's sudden interest in the ruins was an attempt to remove Zebra's distracting presence while he spent hours with Lucifer, accustoming the wild stallion to a man's voice and touch.
But now Ty suspected that Janna had been trying to wean Lucifer of Zebra's company so that the stallion wouldn't balk at being separated when the time came for Ty to head for Wyoming-without Janna.
"It won't work!" Ty called savagely. "You're coming to Wyoming with me if I have to tie you over Zebra's back like a sack of grain!"
Nothing answered Ty but the drumroll of thunder from the mare's speedy, fleeing hooves.
Ty's words echoed mockingly in his own ears. He knew that all Janna had to do was ride off while he slept or worked with Lucifer. On foot he couldn't catch her. Even if she didn't ride Zebra, Ty wasn't much better off. Black Plateau was an open book to Janna; she could hide among its countless ravines the way a shadow could hide among the thousand shades of night.
He would find her eventually, of course. Assuming Cascabel didn't find them first.