Mountain Laurel Read online

  With that he rode away, leading Maddie’s horse behind him.

  The man wasn’t out of sight before ’Ring was on his feet and starting down the hill after him. Maddie, of course, was fastened to ’Ring, and she went tripping after him.

  “Will you stop!” she said as she fell over a tree stump. “He’s already gone and you can’t catch him, not on foot and not with me chained to you. I wish he had given us the key.”

  He turned on her. “You seemed to want to go with him. Maybe you wanted to unlock these things so you could go with him.”

  “I what? I wanted to go with him? Are you out of your mind?”

  “I saw the way you were smiling at him.”

  She glared at him. “I can’t believe this! I may have just saved your life by keeping you from jumping on a man who held a gun on you, but now you stand there having a fit of jealousy.”

  “Jealousy? I am merely stating what I saw. You nearly threw yourself at him. It’s a wonder that you didn’t ask him to take you with him along with the horses.”

  Maddie started to yell back at him, but then she relaxed and smiled. His jealousy was rather nice. “He was the best-looking robber I’ve ever seen. I don’t imagine he has to use a gun on the women he robs. All he’d have to do is smile at them and I bet they’d give him anything he wanted.”

  ’Ring stood there and glared at her for a few moments, then she saw him relax. He smiled at her, and Maddie thought that the robber wasn’t the only one who could make a woman do whatever he wanted. “Well, here we are, just the two of us, chained together, no horses, no blankets, no anything at all, but three whole days before you have to be somewhere else. Why don’t we stay here and have a little vacation?”

  Maddie was standing as far away from him as the chain would allow. “Stay here? We can’t stay here.”

  “Why not? You need a break, and you said that it was three days before you had to meet anyone again, so I guess that means it’s three days before you have to sing again, so why not stay here? Aren’t you sick of that camp and living in a tent?”

  “Actually I am, but I can’t stay here with you.”

  “Why not?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. How could he be so dumb? “Because, Captain, you are a man and I am a woman. And on top of that we are chained together. Does that answer your question?”

  He stood there, looking at her for a moment, as though he were trying to understand her meaning. At last he said, “Oh, I see. You’re concerned that I’ll…You know. I guess I’m being branded a rapist again. What if I promise that I won’t make any improper advances toward you? What if I swear not to touch you? Will that help?”

  Maddie looked at him. Three days alone in the woods with a man, and a man such as Captain Montgomery. She shouldn’t do it. Absolutely not. Of course she shouldn’t. She should go back down the mountain, get Sam to cut the handcuffs off, then spend the days peacefully in her tent, alone. Reading. Worrying about Laurel. Alone.

  “You’d have to swear on your word of honor,” she heard herself saying. “I mean, Captain, I wouldn’t want to be fighting you off every minute.” Even the thought of fighting him off made chill bumps on her arms. What if she lost?

  He looked at her very solemnly. “I swear that I won’t touch you. I would swear on my mother’s grave, but she is still very much alive, so I guess you’ll just have to take my word for my intentions. I swear to not touch you no matter what.”

  “No matter what?”

  He stepped close to her, and when he spoke, his voice was very low. “I won’t touch you no matter how much I may want to. No matter how your hair smells when it’s been warmed by the sun. No matter that I would give ten years of my life just to hold your bare body against mine. No matter how the memory of you riding in front of me, your thighs against mine, haunts me. No matter that the nights in the mountains are cold and, because we are handcuffed together, we will have to sleep together, wrapped around each other, our bodies perfectly fitting together. No matter what, I will not touch you.”

  Maddie closed her eyes. His voice was so soft that even though he was so close to her she could feel his breath on her face, she could barely hear him. He put his hand to the side of her face, his fingertips in her hair, his thumb against the corner of her mouth.

  “I swear that I will not kiss your neck or your eyes or the little vein in your temple. Nor will I kiss your round white shoulders, or your waist, or your thighs, or the arch of your left foot. I will not lick the soft skin where your arm bends, or put your fingertips one by one in my mouth and suck on them. Are you hungry?”

  Maddie was lounging in a standing position, her knees weak, her whole body turned soft and pliant. “What?” she managed to whisper. She opened her eyes slowly. She could see his full lower lip and she had what was nearly a craving to run the tip of her finger under his mustache and feel the curve of his upper lip. His shirt was open halfway down his chest, and she wanted to bite the hair-covered skin she saw.

  “I asked if you’re hungry. Are you all right? You look a little pale.”

  Maddie opened her eyes a little wider and stared at him. Had he said all that she’d heard? “What did you say to me?”

  He put his hands under her armpits and jerked her upright to a full standing position. “Maybe we should go down the mountain after all, although I do think you need rest. The last few days are beginning to tell on you.”

  Maddie shook her head as though to clear it. “I demand that you repeat what you said about…about not touching me.”

  “I swore that I’d not touch you under any circumstances. Isn’t that what you were worried about? You did say that you were concerned about what I might do to you, considering that I’m a male and you’re a female. I was merely trying to reassure you.” He looked up at the sky. “You know, I think we might get some rain. If we’re going to stay here, we’d better find shelter and some firewood.”

  Maddie was wondering if she was perhaps going a little mad. Had she imagined what he’d said? He started walking and, being chained to him, she had no choice but to follow. “What did you say about…about sleeping together?”

  “I said that it’s cold in these mountains and, for warmth, we’d have to sleep together. Look over there, it’s an outcropping of rock. We can make camp there. I think there’s enough room for us and a fire. Now, how do we start a fire? You don’t have matches, do you?”

  “No,” she said softly, looking at his back as she followed him, then, abruptly, she stopped. “Stop right there! I demand that you repeat what you said to me, the part about my hair and…and my foot.”

  He turned slowly and smiled in a fatherly way. “You have two feet, a left one and a right one, and you have rather nice hair. Anything else?”

  Maddie started to say more, but she caught herself. Two could play at this game. Well, maybe she could play. She couldn’t imagine telling him that she wanted to see how his upper lip curved. She walked past him, trying her best to act haughty. “I don’t need matches to start a fire. My father—” She stopped when he didn’t move, the immobility of him jerking her backward.

  “Your father,” he said under his breath.

  She smiled sweetly. “Yes, my father. My father taught me some survival tricks.”

  “Such as starting a fire without matches? Rubbing two sticks together? Do you have any idea how long that takes and how difficult it is to do?”

  “I know exactly how long it takes, and if you’d done it as often as I have, you’d find it wasn’t too difficult. I may not carry matches with me, they get wet, but I always carry a fire steel and flint with me. My father said that a man—or woman for that matter—could survive if he had the makings for a fire, a snare, a few fishing hooks, and a knife.”

  “And I guess you have all these things with you.”

  “Of course,” she said smugly. “Don’t you carry them with you whenever you leave camp? One never knows when one may be separated from one’s horse. Don’t tell me,