California Caress

Drake’s good humor faded as quickly as it had come. His jaw hardened, his expression melting until it was perfectly blank. “Do you think I should?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. No matter what he is, no matter what awful things he’s done, he’s still your brother, Drake. You can’t forget that.”

“Shouldn’t you be lecturing Charles on the loyalty due ‘family’?” he drawled sarcastically. “Or have you forgotten that it was my dear, sweet brother who hired Tubbs to hunt me down and kill me in the first place?”

“I haven’t forgotten, but you can’t be positive your brother was behind that. Who’s to say Tubbs didn’t lose some money to you in a card game, then hunt you down to take the losses out of your hide?”

Drake’s fingers snaked out and wrapped around her wrist. With a quick tug, he pulled her close, until their faces were barely a hand’sbreadth apart. It was all she could do to keep from tumbling out of the saddle as Lazy sidestepped the black with growing agitation.

“I’m to say,” he growled angrily, his breath kissing her upturned face. “If Tubbs had played hands across a table from me, I’d remember it. I’m not stupid enough to think it was mere coincidence that he traveled all the way from Boston and just happened to show up in the same mining town I was in—three times. It seems awful peculiar that shots were taken at my head the second that man showed his ugly face. He followed me from camp to camp. I sat back and watched him. Why the hell do you think I was so suspicious of you the night you showed up drunk in my room? I thought you were in cahoots with him, and I wasn’t letting you out until I was damn sure you weren’t. No, it wasn’t coincidence that it was Tubbs’s bullet that landed in your shoulder, even though it was meant for me. And you’d be a damn fool to think it was.” He laughed a derisive, merciless sound. “How can you sit here and defend the man who almost killed you?”

“I’m not defending Tubbs,” she argued, pulling away from him. “I’m defending family. I may not have one anymore, but I can still remember what it was like when my family was alive. No one would do such a thing to his own brother!”

“I’ll say it again: you don’t know Charles, you don’t know what he is and isn’t capable of.”

She brushed back the wisps of chestnut curls from her brow. “No, maybe not. But I knew Luke. I knew that it was like to—.

“Don’t compare the two, Hope. It isn’t the same.”

Drake watched the delicate jaw harden. He recognized the gesture for what it was, a sign that she had no intention of surrendering the fight. Not yet, anyway. Sighing, he rested his hands on the saddle horn and turned his eyes to the horizon. When he looked back, Hope’s lower lip was thrust out in an enticing pout.

“You never said what you plan to do to Charles,” she reminded him tersely. “Did you forget to answer the question, or don’t you trust me?”

“Trust has nothing to do with it. But as long as we’re on the subject...” he grumbled, his voice trailing suggestively away. The sea-green gaze captured hers, and he watched as her back went rigid. Her chin automatically rose at a proud angle, and the gesture made the long taper of her neck appear almost swan-like as it rose from the collar of his flannel shirt.

Hope eyed drake suspiciously. “What are you getting at, Frazier?”

“What I’m ‘getting at’ is that there seems to be a lack of that commodity when it comes to us.” His eyes narrowed shrewdly as he raked her form. “Or have you forgotten that morning in the way station?”

Hope looked guiltily away. If her eyes didn’t give away her feelings, the color that splashed over her cheeks most certainly would. “That has nothing to do with this. Leave it alone.”

“It has everything to do with this.” The crook of his finger cupped her chin, bringing her gaze back to his. “You’ve been acting like there’s nothing at all between us for the last six weeks. You avoid me at every turn, and talk to me only when you have no choice. I think it’s about time you told me why.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She pulled back, breaking the disturbing contact. What should she tell him? That his inability to verbally express any feelings for her left her raw? That she was petrified he would resume his relationship with Angelique once they returned to Boston? She could always mention the demeaning “job” he’d hired her for. Or perhaps he wanted to hear her confess that she knew, deep down in her heart, that no man could ever love a woman as hideously scarred as herself.

Hope confided nothing of the kind. Instead she rested back in the saddle and studied the toe of her boot, peeking out from the rolled-up hem of her dusty trousers. “There’s nothing to tell, because there is nothing going on between us.”

“Oh really?”

In an instant, Drake had slipped from the saddle, dragging a reluctant Hope along with him. Was it intentional, she wondered, the way her body was forced to slide slowly down the length of his before she was set on her feet?

“Let me go,” she ordered breathlessly. Every inch pressing against him was excruciatingly aware of the muscular male flesh lying dormant beneath trail-dusty clothes. “There’s still enough daylight to make at least five more miles,” she was quick to point out. She was not relieved to note the way her tone bordered on desperation. “If we keep stopping like this we’ll never get to Missouri.”

“We’ll get there,” he drawled huskily. “We’ll just be five hours late.” One hand reached up, the backside drawn leisurely down the soft expanse of her cheek. Hope trembled. “Tell me something. Can you honestly say that all of the time we’ve spent together means absolutely nothing to you?”

“Nothing,” she echoed. Swallowing hard, she looked away.

Drake was quick to pull her back, his green eyes darkening. “Don’t lie to me, sunshine. And don’t lie to yourself. You know damn well that whatever your lips say, your body has a mind all its own. That’s one thing that never lies.”

“And what about you, Drake?” she countered without thinking. “As long as we’re being honest, can you honestly say that Angelique really means nothing to you anymore?”

“Angelique?!” Drake stared incredulously into the hauntingly large, velvet brown eyes. The arm around her waist tightened, and he refused to let her go when she struggled to break free. He was determined to get at the bottom of this, even if it meant spending the rest of their damn lives in the wilderness, alone. He’d find out what had been eating Hope for the past six weeks, or he’d die trying!

“All right,” he said, gripping both her arms and forcing her to return his gaze when she would have looked away. He could tell from her tight expression that she hadn’t meant to reveal so much. “I want to know what you think Angelique has to do with this and I want to know now. The truth, please.”

Hope bit her tongue and refused to answer. For a split second, she thought Drake would throttle a reply out of her. He didn’t, although the black look that remained on his face said that he was giving the matter serious thought.

“She has nothing to do with you and me, sunshine. Nothing. That part of my life is over. It has been for years.”