“You’ve mentioned your father before…repeatedly.” He filled his mouth with chicken. “Do you know that when you speak of your father you sound as though you’re speaking of God? I imagine your father is a good mess captain.”
“My father is the best! The absolute best there is. He is honest and kind and good and…” She hated the way he was smirking at her. “And he has a sense of humor.”
“Anybody who has been through what I have in the last few days and is still sane has to have a sense of humor.”
“All of it brought on by yourself.” In spite of her good intentions, she could feel herself getting angry. “Why don’t you go back where you came from and leave me alone?”
“And leave you to all the men who are watching you?”
“The only person watching me who bothers me is you.” She stood up and started to go back down the hill, but he caught her skirt.
“What’s the matter, don’t you have a sense of humor? What’s making you so grumpy?”
She looked down at him, not knowing whether he was serious or laughing at her.
“Come on, you don’t want to leave, and you know it. You know what I think, Miss Worth?”
“No, and I don’t care to know.”
“I think that for years now you’ve been treated as a legend rather than as a person. I don’t think you’ve allowed anyone close enough to you to question your story of being a duchess from Lanconia. All you’ve had to do was sing, and with that voice of yours, all sense leaves a person and he can’t use what brains he was given.”
“Is that so?” she said, trying to sound haughty but not quite accomplishing her goal.
“You’ve spoken about that manager of yours, but as far as I can tell, all he cared about was the money you brought in. Tell me, how long has it been since you saw anyone in your family?”
To Maddie’s disbelief, she felt tears forming in her eyes. “Let me go,” she said softly, tugging on her skirt. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“No, you don’t,” he said quietly, and there was a hint of apology in his voice. “I didn’t mean—”
He broke off, for they both heard the sound in the bushes at the same time. It was in the opposite direction from where her camp was. Whoever had made the noise had to have come down the mountain.
Maddie didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone move so fast. One second Captain Montgomery was on the ground and the next he was on top of her, pulling her down with him, his arms wrapped around her back and one leg wrapped about her legs, the other leg guiding them as they rolled down the hill, away from the camp, away from t
he sound in the bushes.
They rolled for some distance, Maddie’s body rarely touching the ground as his big body enveloped and protected her. He stopped fifty feet down the hill, hiding them in the scrub oaks. She started to speak, but he put his hand at the back of her head and buried her face in his neck. He was protecting her completely, so that should any danger—a shot, an arrow—come, he would receive it and not her.
The thrashing in the bushes became louder, and she recognized it at the same time that he did.
“Elk,” she whispered against his neck, and he nodded.
Still on top of her, still covering her, he turned his head, allowing her to do so also, and they saw not an elk, but a mule deer standing on the hill, where they had just been. The deer stood still and watched them for a moment, not knowing what they were, then, as ’Ring lifted his arm, the deer hurried off into the woods with its springy gait.
“Are you all right?” he asked, rising on one elbow to look at her.
“Perfectly.” She started to move out from under him but stopped when she felt something sharp pricking her. “I seem to have a thorn in my shoulder.”
He moved off her, sat up, and turned her over. He pulled two cactus thorns from her shoulder. “There. Any more?”
She sat up and moved her shoulders. “No, I think that’s all of them.” She looked back up the steep hill they had just rolled down and saw it was covered with flat-leaved cacti, and she was glad for the protection of her skirt and petticoats, her corset and corset cover. She looked back at him. “I’ve never seen anyone react so quickly. Thank you.”
“Nothing a good mess captain wouldn’t do—or your father.”
She started to tell him what she thought of his little jest, but instead she smiled. “Do I really talk of my father in worshipful tones?”
He smiled and nodded at her. “You ready to go back to your tent now?”
She said, “Yes,” and looked down at her skirt to brush it off. There were cactus thorns sticking out of it everywhere. She looked back up the hill at the path they’d made as they’d rolled and looked at the many cacti they’d rolled over, then looked back up at him.