loved her more deeply with each passing day.
He heard light footfalls behind him.
“You must be getting old, darling,” Sally said, smiling one of her memorable smiles. “I’ve never seen you needing a rest so often. You used to be able to chop wood all day without stopping to catch your breath every five minutes. I may have to look for a younger man, if this keeps up.”
“A younger man would refuse to take all this punishment from a woman, no matter how pretty she was. I’m only slave labor, in your opinion. That would be just like you, to throw me away for a younger man as soon as I’ve chopped and split all this firewood to keep us warm.”
“A younger man could have finished this job in half the time and still had something left for me.”
He turned to her, hard muscles gleaming in the sunlight. “I may have a surprise for you tonight, Mrs. Jensen,” he told her with mock seriousness. “I may be getting a little long in the tooth, but I can still chop wood all day and make love all night. I hope you feel up to it.”
Her smile only widened. “I think I’m developing a headache just now. Maybe another time. Ask me in the spring.”
He sauntered over and put his arms around her, staring down into her eyes. “Be careful, pretty lady, or you might force me to tear your clothes off right now and throw you down on a bed of pine needles. I’m not buying any headache stories.”
She forced a frown, giving a halfhearted attempt to pull away from his embrace. “You’re an animal. I’ve known it for years. You only brought me up here so you could use me, and I won’t stand for it. I’ll scream.”
He chuckled. “No one will hear you, except for a few grizzlies or an elk or two. Scream your head off, for all I care. I’m taking what’s mine.”
“You think of me as a piece of property?”
“My property, and if any younger man lays a hand on you I swear I’ll kill him. You can include older men in that same bunch.” He scowled.
Sally tried to conceal the beginnings of a grin. “Not only are you an animal, but you’re violent, a savage beast. I should have listened to my mother. She warned me about you.“
He maintained a stern expression “She did? Exactly what did she say?”
Now Sally was serious for a moment. “She told me that some men are loners, that they can’t be tamed or tied to one woman or the same piece of ground for very long. She said it was bred in them, and that I’d never change you from being a solitary mountain man or a drifter.”
“She was wrong,” he whispered, bending down to kiss her gently on the lips. “She didn’t give her daughter enough credit for knowing how to change a man’s ways.”
She stared deeply into his eyes. “Some things about you will never change, my darling,” she told him softly. “You’ll always be just a push or a shove away from another fight. You are two different people. One is the gentle man I love so dearly who can’t seem to stop showing me or telling me how much he loves me. Then there’s the other Smoke Jensen, the man almost everyone in Colorado Territory fears. It’s hard to describe, how you can change so quickly. One wrong word, a wrong look, a wrong deed, and you become someone I scarcely recognize. It’s not that you can’t control your temper… You always seem calm, in control of yourself. But when you get your mind set to go after another man, or a dozen men, for whatever reason, you can’t be talked out of it. Not even by me, not even when you know how much it frightens me when I think about the possibility of losing you.”
“You worry too much.”
“What else can I do when the man I love is putting his life on the line?”
He thought about it for a time. “You can learn to trust me, to trust my instincts for staying alive. Over the years a hell of a lot of men have tried to kill me, for one reason or another. None of ’em got it done, although I’ve got a nick or two in my hide to show for it. Trust me when I promise you I’ll always come home to you.”
“It won’t stop me from worrying…”
He glanced up at the advancing clouds. “There’s a storm coming. Probably means snow, this high, and maybe some rain we need for our pastures down at the ranch.”
“You changed the subject, Smoke. We were talking about how much it scares me when you go off on one of your manhunts. Like what happened in Big Rock this summer when those three men came to town looking for Ned Buntline. Louis told me what happened. You could have ignored the way they were looking at you. Instead you prodded them into a gun-fight”
“They were looking for one anyway. I know I’ve got my share of faults, Sally, but when some gent challenges me, it’s just my nature to answer back. Let’s talk about something else, like what we’re having for supper. Whatever it is, it sure does smell good.”
“Venison and wild onions. I found some wild onions down at the creek when I went for a pail of water. And I’ve got another surprise. The Dutch oven is loaded. I’ve got it banked with a pile of hot coals, so it’ll cook slowly.”
“What’s in it?” he asked, his mouth already watering.
“You’ll have to wait and see, Mr. Jensen. I told you it was a surprise.”
“Those tins of peaches. You made a peach cobbler, didn’t you?”
Sally pushed away from him playfully. “I’ll never tell, not unless I can find a man who can chop wood without threatening to rip my clothes off.”
“Don’t tempt me, woman. I may just carry through with that threat.”
“You’re getting too old to catch me if I decide to run away. Which I just might do. Or I might take my clothes off and lie down naked under a pine tree, if the right man came along. But it would have to be for the right man…”
He laughed, and came toward her.
