Again Maddie had to hold on to ’Ring when he started after the man. She handed the blankets to him.
She didn’t say anything as the man mounted ’Ring’s horse. “The key,” she said.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the key, and looked down at it a moment. “I’d sure like to know why you two are chained together. Seems that one of you don’t want the other to get away.” He fixed ’Ring with an insolent look. “I sure don’t have to chain my women to me.” He looked at the key, then grinned at it and put it back into his pocket. “Think I’ll let you two stay together.”
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.”