“You can’t leave,” he rasped out. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home.”
“There,” she said, pointing toward the rocks. “Just a short way from here.”
The man looked at the rocks, then back to her, a look of Are you crazy? on his face. “There are only mountains that way. No ranches or farms, nothing but rocks and rattlesnakes.” He took her arm again. “I’ll take you wherever you live.”
“I live there,” she said emphatically. “Anyway, where I live or don’t live is none of your business. Now please go away.”
He blocked her path. “Are you saying that you risked your life to save me, stayed with me all night to reassure yourself of my safety, and now I’m just to ride away and leave you here alone in the mountains without another thought for you? Do I have that right?”
“You have it exactly right.” Again she tried to step around him.
But he swept her into his arms and carried her back to the campfire, and all Kady’s struggling didn’t make him falter.
“Release me or I’ll scream.”
“And who do you think will hear you?”
He set her down on a boulder, the one where she’d sat the day before and tried to sort out what had happened to her. Calm down, she told herself. She had to get away from this man and get back to the doorway in the rock where she’d entered this foreign place.
There was part of Kady that knew she was alone with a man in the middle of who-knew-where and yesterday someone had been about to hang him. He could very well be a rapist-murderer-escaped-lunatic or whatever, and she should tread lightly.
But some instinct said that he would never harm her and, if need be, he would protect her with his life.
But whatever he was, whoever he was, didn’t matter. Her only concern was that she needed to get away from him and get back to the opening. She looked about for something to distract him from standing there and glaring down at her. “I’m rather hungry. What about you? If you find us something to eat, I’ll cook it.”
Smiling at her in the way men do when they are sure they have won an argument, he said, “That’s an excellent idea. I’ll find us a couple of rabbits.”
She smiled at him sweetly. “Very good.” Since she’d searched his saddlebags and his trouser’s pockets, she knew he had no gun. “There’s a rifle over there.”
To Kady’s surprise, the man seemed to pale, and in a lightning motion, he grabbed the rifle from where it lay propped against a tree, and before Kady could take a breath, he’d slammed it against a rock and shattered it.
“What are you doing?” she half screamed. “What if those men who tried to kill you come back?”
When the rifle was in pieces on the ground, the man dropped the bit of barrel that remained in his hands as though it were something filthy. “I don’t like guns,” he whispered harshly.
“Obviously.” As she looked up at him, he seemed to sway on his feet. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” he said, but when he closed his eyes for a moment, Kady stood and pushed him toward the shade of the cottonwood tree, where he reluctantly sat down on the ground.
In concern, she knelt beside him, her face close to his as she felt his forehead for fever but found none. She smiled at him. “I don’t think hanging agrees with you, so I don’t think you should try it again.”
He looked at her, his dark blue eyes intense. “Who are you and why are you out here at the Hanging Tree, miles from town and wearing a wedding dress?”
“I, ah, I was . . . in my apartment and trying on the dress because I’m supposed to be married in a few weeks, and I heard something, and I, ah . . .” She looked at him.
“You’re not very good at lying.”
“Thankfully, I haven’t had much reason to learn how.” Looking up, she scanned the rocks at the foot of the mountain, the place where she’d come down the path. “You wouldn’t know where there are any petroglyphs, would you?”
“And who is that? Your—” He hesitated, and there was a definite sneer on his rather perfect lips. “The man you’re planning to marry?”
“Petroglyphs are pictures carved on rocks. These are little stick men chasing an elk. And the man I’m going to marry is named Gregory Norman,” she said; then, to her horror, she burst into tears.
Instantly, strong arms were put around her and her head was drawn to a hard, broad chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t usually—”
“Sssh, sweetheart, you cry all you want,” he said soothingly, as he stroked her hair.
Kady did cry, but not for long; but when she stopped and tried to pull away from him, he still held her close. It didn’t take much pressure to make her remain in his arms, for it seemed that now that the immediate danger was over, she was frightened at what had happened to her.