Читать книгу: «The Bounty Hunter's Bride»

Chapter One

There was pain. There was darkness. And there was snow. Kane Slater had lost track of how long his life had consisted of those three stark realities. One hour? Four? Ten? Had there ever been anything else? He knew the sky was up. Therefore, that’s where the darkness and the snow had to be coming from. The pain, on the other hand, was coming from all directions: from the sting of the wind on his face, the prickling numbness in his feet and the piercing ache in his shoulder.

He’d tracked men through higher mountains than these, in worse blizzards, but at the time he hadn’t been freezing, or bleeding, or lost. Taking as deep a breath as he could without moving his shoulder a fraction more than he had to, he pulled one foot out of the deep snow and took a tortuous step.

There was pain.

He took another step. There was darkness.

He drew in another slow, careful breath. There was snow.

Pain. Darkness. Snow. Pain. Darkness. Snow. And a flickering yellow light.

A yellow light? He breathed too deeply, clutched his arm and nearly blacked out. Being more careful, he strained to see through the blinding snow. High on the next ridge, a light flickered. Maybe he could make it to that light before he died. Or maybe he was already dead and was having one of those out-of-body experiences and was being drawn up toward that light. Not likely. He had a pretty good idea which direction he was going when he died. And it wasn’t up.

He’d never planned to grow old, but by God, he didn’t plan to bleed to death on some nondescript little mountain in Tennessee, either. He closed his eyes. Since the light was still there when he opened them again, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

Blasted blizzard. Blasted weakness. Blasted poor excuse for a mountain.

Josie McCoy stopped humming long enough to open the door on the woodstove and add two more logs to the glowing coals. The fire crackled and popped, the flames curling upward like a living, breathing being that gobbled up wood in exchange for blessed, glowing heat. She closed the door and latched it securely before turning in a circle inside the old hunting cabin high on a narrow bluff in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The wind whipped snow against the single windowpane. “You know Mother Nature is only doing this out of spite.” She spoke out loud and—since there was no one else to talk to—to herself. Her father and the boys were probably having a good belly laugh right about now at her expense. “Go ahead and laugh,” she said as if they could hear her halfway down the mountain.

The howling of the wind was her only answer. Peering out the window, Josie smiled, because it was answer enough. J.D., the brother closest to her in age, had claimed she’d never make it two whole weeks with nobody to talk to. Hah! They’d never make it two whole weeks without somebody to cook their meals and wash their clothes and haul their big feet out of the way in order to tidy the place up a little. Her father and brothers might have been mountain men, but thanks to the satellite dish on the shed’s roof, the twentieth century had finally made it all the way to Hawk Hollow, Tennessee. Right on its heels had come women’s lib. That’s what Josie was doing. Liberating herself from those ingrates who were her closest relatives.

“Men!” she sputtered. “With their chew and whiskers and clodhopper boots. Who needs ’em?”

Closing her eyes, she ran her fingers over her face, spreading them wide into her hair, over the collar of her flannel shirt, and—slowly—down to her waist. Surely all men weren’t like her father and older brothers. Surely there was one man out there—somewhere—who was tall and debonair and pleasing to the eye. And sexy. She opened only one eye and fixed it on her bed. God, yes, he would have to be sexy.

A log popped, making her jump. Shivering against a sudden draft, she folded her arms, eyed the dwindling stack of logs piled next to the stove and promptly headed for the front stoop where she’d had the good sense to heap enough firewood to make it through the night.

Bracing herself for the shock of the wind, she tugged on the latch. The door swung open with so much force it banged against the wall. A shock went through Josie, but not from the wind. A man stood on her doorstep. A big man. She didn’t have time to scream. She barely had time to break the man’s fall before he hit the floor, unconscious or dead, she couldn’t be sure.

She put all her weight into pushing his legs out of the way so she could close the door. He groaned, and for the first time she saw that his shirt was covered in blood. Gliding down to her knees, she leaned over him and placed a hand on his chest to see if he was breathing. His chest rose slightly beneath her palm. By the time her gaze made it to his face, his eyes were open and he was watching her.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“Slater. Kane. Slater.” His breath caught between each word, and then, before her eyes, he lost consciousness.

“What am I supposed to do with you, Slater Kane Slater?” She lifted the soiled lapel of his sheepskin coat. Swallowing, she closed her eyes for a moment and tried to calm her churning stomach. Growing up with four older brothers, she’d seen her share of blood over the years, but this was the first time in her twenty-three years she’d seen a wound like this all the way through a man’s shoulder.

“Lordy, mister,” she mumbled after retrieving a threadbare towel from the table and pressing it over both sides of the wound. “I came up here to get away from the men in my life and I sure as shootin’ don’t need the likes of you bleeding all over my floor.”

“Tracks. Snow. Got away.”

His voice was harsh and raw and so unexpected that she jumped back in surprise. He let out a long, audible breath and fought against her hand that was pressed over the blood-soaked towel, as if somewhere in his befuddled mind he thought he was still in danger. The next thing she knew he’d rolled to his knees and was staggering to his feet.

Josie rose more slowly. If his eyes hadn’t drilled her to the spot, she would have taken a giant step backward. He was tall. Even bleeding he was formidable. He had the face of an outlaw, four or five days’ worth of whiskers, skin that looked tough and chapped. His hair was matted to his head. Clean, it would probably be light brown. His eyes were light brown, too. At the moment, they looked kind of crazed.

Gauging the distance between him and the corner where she kept a shotgun handy just in case, she said, “I hope that look in your eyes is from pain and blood loss and not because you’re a lunatic. I mean, you’re not an escaped prisoner or a murderer or a rapist, are you? Although I doubt that even a crazed lunatic could do much damage in your condition.”

The baffled expression that crossed his features came as no surprise to Josie. All men looked at her that way every now and then. “Well?” she demanded. “Are you?”

“Never been to prison. Not a murderer or rapist.” He started to sway.

Since he would be a lot easier to maneuver on his feet, she tucked her shoulder underneath his arm to steady him. She staggered beneath his weight. “Whoa, big fella.” In an effort to keep him upright, she locked her spine and wrapped one arm around his waist. His arm slid limply down the front of her, the back of his hand brushing her breast.

“Don’t have much in the curve department, do ya?”

This time her huff was mostly affronted pride. Slowly, jerkily, she started toward the bed on the far wall. With two more steps to go to make it to the bed, she gritted her teeth and ground out, “A gentleman would never say such a thing.”

He fell onto the lumpy mattress, the sudden jar eliciting a raw-sounding oath from his dry lips. Their gazes met, held, his throat convulsing on a swallow she assumed was from the need to cry out in pain. Instead, in a voice that was deep and shaky, he murmured, “It would be a mistake to think of me as a gentleman.”

Eyes closed, he sank into unconsciousness once again.

For what might have been the first time in her life, Josie was struck speechless. Staring at the grim line of his lips and the gray pallor of his skin, she finally said, “Just my luck. I finally have an interesting man in my bed and he’s half-dead and God only knows what side of the law he’s on.”

Wondering what on earth he’d been doing out on a night like this, she tried to decide what to do. The fresh blood soaking into his shirt propelled her into action. No matter what he’d been doing, it looked as if it was up to her to save him.

She started with his shoulder. After applying another clean towel over the entry and exit wounds of what could only be the result of a bullet, she reached for a scissors. When he groaned in his sleep, she said, “I know, I know. Bear with me for a few more minutes until I get you out of these soggy clothes.”

With shaking hands, she cut his coat and shirt away from his wounded shoulder, painstakingly sliding the wet garments from his body. The sight of a man’s bare chest was nothing new to her. Her brothers traipsed around the house without their shirts most of the summer. The McCoy boys were thin and wiry, their chests as hairy as apes. Kane Slater’s chest was broad and far from hairy, his stomach muscles forming interesting ridges that disappeared beneath the waistband of faded jeans.

“You’re a strong one, aren’t you? Well, mister, it’s a good thing because I don’t think a weaker man would have made it this far. I don’t know if it was good luck or the good Lord, but either way it looks as if it’s up to me to take it from here.”

She doubted he could hear her, but talking calmed her nerves. “Yes, indeedy, you’re gonna feel a whole lot better when we get you out of these wet clothes.”

It took her five minutes and a considerable amount of huffing and puffing to remove his soggy cowboy boots, and five more to get him out of his jeans. She hesitated a moment after that, uncertain how to go about removing his underwear without injuring his pride.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she curled her fingers beneath the elastic waistband and tugged. Other than getting stuck here and there, the garment came off without too much trouble. For some reason, her breath caught in her throat and her mind turned a little fuzzy. Something strange was taking place deep inside her. It felt a little like the flutter of butterfly wings or daisy petals ruffling on a gentle breeze. If the sensation would have settled any higher, she would have blamed it on hunger. If this was hunger, it was a kind she’d never felt before.

The stranger groaned again. Dropping the last garment of clothing to the rough plank floor, she muttered, “You’re a wicked, wicked woman, Josie McCoy. This man has lost a lot of blood and is in terrible pain and all you can think about are the changes takin’ place in your own belly.”

Without another word, she covered him with a quilt she’d warmed by the stove. He sighed, and dang if something else didn’t shift inside her.

“There, there,” she murmured. “That’s it. Let the heat soak into you. See? It’s better without the wet clothes, isn’t it? I’m afraid I ruined your shirt and coat getting ’em off you, but everything else came off real smooth. And I didn’t linger any longer than absolutely necessary.” She glanced at the shape of his body covered by the quilt, and then at the clothes heaped on the floor, thinking that as long as she never had to swear to that on a stack of bibles she’d be okay.

She kept up a quiet vigil the next several hours, talking to him in a soft, reassuring voice. At least it reassured her. The bleeding had finally stopped, and although his color wasn’t very good, his breathing was deep and steady and he seemed to be resting more comfortably. Once every hour, she cradled his head in her arm and held a cup of cool mountain water to his lips. He drank several swallows before falling into a deep sleep once again.

Every now and then he mumbled in his sleep. Most of the time she couldn’t understand what he was saying, but she answered him anyway, telling him about people he couldn’t possibly know and a life he probably didn’t give two hoots about. She didn’t mention the butterfly wings that had fluttered deep in her stomach, but she wondered what they meant. Maybe it was excitement, or maybe it was an answer to her prayers.

A long time after midnight, his speech became less slurred and his gibberish began making more sense. Wringing out a washcloth over a pan of water she’d heated on the stove, she sat on the edge of the bed and leaned close to him. Placing one hand beside his pillow for balance, she smoothed the warm cloth over his face with long, gentle strokes.

“Warm breezes,” he murmured. “Big skies. It’s Montana, Ma. Good to be home.”

“Montana,” Josie whispered. “Home. Sleep now, Kane. Shh. Sleep.”

He pressed his face into her hand, sighing as if her touch was all he needed. Josie swore her heart climbed higher in her chest and slowly turned over.

Dazedly she found her feet. She lifted the cloth away from his cheek but she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from his face. His eyelashes were long—men had all the luck—his eyebrows were thick and straight and sandy brown in color. His nose was straight and broad, like the rest of his features. Sleeping, he looked less formidable, but not less complex. She tried to blame the changing rhythm of her beating heart on the wistfulness she’d heard in his voice. It might have worked if those butterfly wings hadn’t started fluttering stronger than ever.

She took one step away from the bed and then another. Still, she didn’t take her eyes off him. Placing one hand over her heart and the other low on her stomach, understanding dawned.

“So this is how it feels to be falling in love.”

Funny, she’d given up on the whole prospect of love, telling herself she would settle for honest to goodness attraction. She’d had no idea the two sensations were so closely related.

“Mister,” she said. “I mean, Kane, honey, it looks like this is our destiny. You’re probably gonna want to repay me for saving your life. It turns out this is your lucky day, because I know exactly what you can do to make us even.”

Catching sight of her grin in her reflection in the dark window, she set about getting ready for bed. She heated more water, donned a warm nightgown and thick wool socks. Finally, after tending the fire and checking on Kane one last time, she curled up on a wooden bench she’d padded with layers of blankets, and closed her eyes.

The wind was still blowing, but it had lost its roar. She could hear the crackle of the fire and the steady sound of Kane Slater’s breathing. Kane Slater. She liked the way his name curled through her mind, but she wondered what kind of a man she’d fallen in love with. After all, most men didn’t traipse through a blizzard with a hole in one shoulder. Kane had said he was no gentleman. What did that make him?

She pursed her lips, remembering how wistful his voice had sounded when he’d mentioned Montana and warm breezes and his mama. Surely a man who loved big sky country and his mother couldn’t be all bad, although she’d read somewhere that even men on death row had a soft spot in their hearts for their mothers. Her instincts told her she would never fall in love with someone who was evil. Those instincts had always been trustworthy before. But she just didn’t know. How could she? She’d never been in love before.

As far as she knew, he didn’t realize he was here. It was highly likely that he didn’t even know where here was. They hadn’t exactly met under normal circumstances. What did she really know of him? He’d staggered into the cabin, hurt and bleeding, only to fight against the very hands that were helping him. He’d insulted her lack of curves and admitted that he was no gentleman.

Okay, she knew he was strong and gruff and wounded. Pulling the scratchy blanket up around her neck, she sighed. Closing her eyes, she hoped Kane Slater had a gentle side.

“Where in the hell are my clothes?”

Kane’s bellow brought Josie awake so quickly her vision blurred. Groggy, she sat up and glanced out the window. No wonder she was a little addle minded. The sky was just beginning to turn gray, which meant she’d been sleeping on the hard bench for less than three hours.

“I asked you a question, dammit.”

The room was chilly in the dawn’s early light, the fire awfully low. A firm believer in first things first, she swung her feet onto the cold floor and saw to the fire, thinking that Kane Slater’s gentle side—if he had one—was going to need a little work.

His rough side, on the other hand, was blatantly apparent. He was sitting up in bed, glaring at her, fresh blood soaking the bandage she’d changed hours earlier. Wrapping a woolen blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, she planted her hands on her hips and glared back. “The clothes I could salvage are over there soaking in a bucket of water. If you hold still, we might be able to get that bleeding stopped again. Or you can sit there and holler and move around until you pass out again. It’s up to you.”

Kane cradled his right arm and held very still. It took a lot to make him bite back a scathing retort. The little scrap of a woman studying her thumbnail a few feet away had done it without batting an eye. Keeping her in his line of vision, he sank into the pillows at his back and gritted his teeth against the pain shooting through him.

Doing everything in his power to focus on something other than the pain, he studied the woman. Or was she still a girl? A woman, he decided, although it was hard to tell with that blanket wrapped around her. She had straggly blond hair and plain gray eyes that were too big for her narrow face. He wondered what she would look like dressed. While he was at it, he wondered what she would look like undressed. A vague memory hovered at the edge of his mind. He glanced at the back of his hand, and then at the slight slope of her breast. The skin on his hand prickled with a message that short-circuited before it reached his brain.

“You live up here?” he asked.

With a shake of her head that sent her hair tumbling into her eyes, she said, “I live halfway down the mountain in a little town called Hawk Hollow. I came up here to be by myself. It’s lucky for you my father and brothers are such narrow-minded fools.”

Kane didn’t come close to following her logic. He didn’t see what her father and brothers had to do with him, but he supposed she was right about one thing: He was lucky he’d stumbled upon this cabin when he did. He was lucky the place had been warm, and he was lucky somebody had been here to get him into bed and make him as comfortable as possible. Although he hated to admit it, he supposed he had to admit that he was lucky to be alive.

Studying the narrowness of her shoulders and the thin body underneath the blanket and thick flannel gown, he said, “You must be stronger than you look if you managed to strip a man my size.”

“You are a big one, Kane, that’s for sure. And you’re right. I’m stronger than I look.”

Her smile hit him right between the eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them until he tried to wrestle them open again.

“It’s okay, Kane,” she whispered, placing a hand on his good shoulder. “Relax. That’s it. Just rest and think about the things you like.”

Her hand was warm and narrow and surprisingly soft where it rested on his bare skin. He liked the touch of her hand, and the sound of her voice, and the way she said his name. “I’m afraid I’m at a disadvantage,” he murmured through the darkness swirling toward him from every direction.

“What disadvantage is that?” she whispered.

“You’ve seen me naked and I don’t even know your name.”

“I guess we’re just going to have to even things up a little now, aren’t we?”

His eyes popped open all by themselves. Something that had no business stirring in a dying man stirred low in Kane’s body. His eyes delved hers as she tucked the quilt under his chin.

Holding his gaze, she said, “My name’s Josie McCoy. You didn’t really think I’d strip down right here and now; did you?”

Kane closed his eyes, wondering when his thoughts had become so transparent. “Can’t blame a man for being disappointed.”

“Mister. I mean Kane, I’d be disappointed if you weren’t disappointed.”

His mind was fogging up, making it difficult to concentrate. Just in case he didn’t wake up again, he said, “I don’t know if you saved my life or made dying easier. I owe you either way.”

Moments before the darkness claimed him, her voice came one more time, far, far away. “I’m not going to let you die, Kane, and don’t worry. I have every intention of allowing you to repay me. We might have to do a little bartering. We’ll talk more when you’re stronger.”

Bartering? he thought, slipping into that warm, dark place where there was no pain. Images, erotic, hazy and fanciful, shimmered through his mind. Maybe he was dreaming. No, Kane Slater never dreamed.

Something told him he wasn’t dying, either. And he had Josie McCoy to thank for it. There was obviously more to her than met the eye.

“You’re really a modern-day bounty hunter?”

Kane did his best to keep the growl deep in his throat from escaping. He didn’t nod his head for fear that the razor in Josie’s hands would do serious damage to his face. Not that he would have minded a scar. It was more pain he was trying to avoid.

“Yes,” he grumbled when she lifted the razor from his flesh. “That’s what I said.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Teeth clenched, he held perfectly still as the razor made a clean pass along the edge of his jaw.

Swishing the razor in a pan of warm water, Josie said, “Why would a man who claims to have an undying devotion to the great plains and majestic mountains of Montana traipse off in the middle of the night to places unknown? Pistol drawn, you kick doors down and get lost in mountains you say aren’t really mountains during blizzards and God only knows what else. My daddy always says everybody’s got a reason for doing what they do. Believe me, he knows what he’s talkin’ about. Why?”

The razor had made four more passes down Kane’s face before he’d figured out what her “why?” pertained to. This time there was no stopping the growl from erupting from his throat.

Two nights ago he’d fleetingly wondered if there might be more to Josie McCoy than met the eye. There was more to her, all right, and every last bit of it was driving him crazy. When she wasn’t singing, she was talking, and when she was talking, she was usually asking questions. She asked them while she was putting wood on the fire, while she stirred something in a big pot on the stove, while she fed him warm broth and sweetened tea. Kane hated sweet tea. He hated talking and singing. He hated answering questions most of all.

He knew better than to bite the hand that fed him. His shoulder still hurt like a son of a gun, but the wound was starting to heal. It was too soon to tell if there’d been any nerve damage, but at least the bullet hadn’t hit a major artery. Still, he’d lost a lot of blood, and it was going to take a while to regain his strength. God help him, he needed his strength to keep from telling Josie what she could do with her tea and her songs and her never-ending string of questions.

“Do you have people frantic with worry over you?” she asked.

“People?”

“You know. A wife, kids, parents.”

The razor landed in the metal pan of water with a loud plop. Leaning back, Kane closed his eyes, listening to the scrape of the pan as she slid it away from her across the wood floor.

“No,” he said. “No wife, no kids, no parents. Karl Kennedy, the head of the bail enforcement agency in Butte is probably wondering whether I’m dead or alive, but he’s wondered that before and won’t get real concerned for another week or two.”