Within minutes, she heard the soft sounds of Pilar’s breathing as she slept in the drowsy afternoon. Tynan also seemed to be asleep, and, feeling safe, she began to stroke his hair back from his face. He looked so young with his face relaxed. There was a dirty bandage on his leg, dirty from his constant moving about the forest, showing through the hole in his trousers that the bullet had made.
She kept on with her story, even though she knew that both her listeners were asleep, but she liked stories and she liked to tell them. At the tragic end of the story, she stopped, her hand on the side of Tynan’s face, her fingers buried in the curls of his dark hair, and listened to the birds.
“I liked that,” he said softly into the stillness.
“I thought you were asleep,” she said and started to move her hand away.
He caught it in his own. “No, I wanted to hear the story. A store clerk told me that at about the time I was born, the miner sold him a book. I always wondered if it was a book from my mother and, if it was, what it was. I’ve always liked stories.” Idly, he began to kiss her fingertips, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
“Will you stop that?”
“Chris, if I were going to get married, I swear, you’d be the first woman I’d consider. In fact, thinking about living with you is the most tempting offer I’ve ever had. You’re pretty, enthusiastic in bed—”
She gave a sharp look at Pilar but she seemed to be sound asleep.
“And you’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever met. I’ve talked to you and told you things I’ve never told anybody, but, the truth is, I’m just not marriage material. I don’t think I could stay in one place for very long—that is, if I ever get out of jail where your father would throw me if I dared think I was going to marry his precious daughter. Don’t you see that it just wouldn’t work?”
Chris didn’t let the anger she felt show. It seemed that men could rationalize anything. He didn’t want to get married—was probably terrified of the idea—so he tried to tell her that he couldn’t because he was only thinking of her. “I understand completely,” she said with sympathy in her voice. “You don’t want to get married and I refuse to sleep with a man who won’t marry me. We’ll leave it at that.”
He turned his head to look up at her. “But, Chris, shouldn’t we take what happiness we can find? When we can find it? Before we’re separated forever and never see each other again?”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “Not on your life.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to start yelling at her again, but there was just the hint of a smile on his full lips. “You can’t blame a man for trying.” He turned his head again and resumed kissing her fingertips. “By my calculations, we have at least four more days before Prescott returns with your father. Who knows what will happen in that time?”
“I know what will not happen,” she said smugly, but Tynan didn’t seem to believe her as he began applying his teeth to her sensitive palm.
• • •
“There you are, old man,” Asher Prescott said as he readjusted the smelly man’s bindings for the third time. There was a part of Asher that was bothered by what they’d done: they’d taken the man from his home and now he was being bound hand and foot, yet the old man had done nothing to merit such abuse. So, when the old man had complained that the ropes were too tight, Asher had had pity on him and loosened them.
“I’m going to get some sleep now,” Asher said, rubbing his eyes. He’d been in the saddle for almost two days and he knew that if he didn’t rest, he’d never make it to Del Mathison’s house.
With one last look of sympathy at the old man who huddled against a tree, his little dark eyes looking suspicious, Asher settled down to sleep, using his saddle as a pillow.
The old man seemed as if he too slept, until he heard the soft snores from Asher, then he wiggled his hands and the ropes fell away. “Fool,” he muttered, looking at Asher’s sleeping form with contempt as he untied his feet. “Fool.”
He stood, making no noise at all, looked around a bit until he saw a large rock nearby then picked it up and crept toward Asher. He brought the rock crashing down on Asher’s head as he slept.
The old man stood over Ash for a moment, looking at the unconscious form before ransacking his pockets. It took him only fifteen minutes before he’d taken everything of value from Asher, leaving him lying there in his underwear only, his saddle and gun gone, no money, no boots. For a moment, the old man contemplated taking his underwear or at least cutting the buttons off, but he heard a horse in the distance and decided to get out of there.
As he mounted one horse, leading the other one, he began to mutter, “You think you’re so smart, Mr. Mother-Killer Tynan, but I know somebody that’ll pay to know where you are. I know somebody. I’ll show you.” He cursed and muttered as he traveled north toward the Dysan estate.
Chapter Twenty-four
Chris tried her best to stay away from Tynan for the next two days, but it was almost impossible to do. If she went for water, there he was. If she stopped for a moment to look at the scenery, there he was, his eyes on her in invitation. Once, she jumped when she heard something in the underbrush and Ty was there to put his arms around her and hold her. They heard shots in the distance on the morning of the second day and her heart was in her throat as Tynan, with rifle in hand, crept down the steep path to see who it was. She nearly cried with relief when he came back to tell her that it was only hunters and they were far away.
“Worried about me?” he asked, his eyes hot and showing his desire for her.
Chris picked up her skirts and fled from him.
“Anything wrong?” Pilar asked innocently. She’d taken over the cooking ever since Chris had ruined some of their precious flour trying to make biscuits.
“That man is the worst!” she said, her heart pounding.
“He certainly does like you.”
“Well, I don’t like him.”