and flour over there. Can you cook?»
Numbly, Willow nodded.
«Then get cracking,» he said. «When the sun tops that hill, I’m drowning the campfire. Whatever isn’t cooked by then we eat raw or go without.»
Willow started to dismount, only to discover that her right leg wouldn’t cooperate. It had gone to sleep. Using both hands, she lifted her leg over the horn and gritted her teeth, for pain returned as blood flowed freely once more.
With narrowed eyes, Caleb watched. He had known the ride would be hard on Willow, but he hadn’t known how hard. He barely resisted the urge to lift her off the horse and carry her to a bed within a streamside thicket. But it had taken longer to find a safe camping spot than he had expected. Unless she worked alongside him, their only food would be cold jerky or hardtack and even colder stream water. He could survive on that indefinitely — he had often enough in the past — but he doubted that Willow would last two days on that diet. She was so tired her skin looked transparent.
Abruptly, Caleb lifted Willow from the saddle. When her feet touched the earth, he felt her knees buckle. He caught and held her, breathing in the faint hint of lavender and rain that she wore like an invisible veil. In his memory he tasted peppermint again, a freshness that had both startled and aroused him when he had realized its source was her lips touching the canteen’s rim just before his.
«Can’t you even stand up?» Caleb asked, his tone clipped, almost harsh.
Thewhiplike quality of Caleb’s voice stiffened Willow’s spine. She pushed away from him and began working over Ishmael’s saddle girth with clumsy hands.
«Go gather kindling, southern lady,» Caleb said, brushing her hands aside. «I’ll take care of your stud.»
The nickname was like a slap. For an instant Willow felt like lashing out in return, but she lacked the energy. In any case, at the moment Caleb was able to give better care to her stallion than she was, and her horse’s well- being mattered more than her pride.
Without a word Willow turned away from Caleb. She headed for the most dense thicket she could find, pushed inside, and kept going until she could see nothing when she looked over her shoulder but greenery. Only then did she begin struggling with the intricate fastenings of her long skirt. She peeled wet cloth and matted petticoats down her legs and prayed Caleb was gentleman enough not to follow her.
By the time she finished she was shivering. Even so, it was painful to drag the heavy divided skirt back up legs chapped raw by repeated rubbing against wet cloth. Taking small steps, walking awkwardly to spare her sensitive inner thighs, Willow began gathering twigs and small dead branches from the thicket. As she worked, her body slowly warmed and became less stiff.
By the time she had gathered a small pile of wood and emerged from the thicket, Caleb had finished picketing the horses. He was sitting on his heels beneath an overhanging screen of shrubbery, peeling shavings of dry wood from the inner bark of a small downed cottonwood. His wickedly sharp hunting knife was as long as his forearm. The blade flashed and gleamed like water in the vague pre-dawn light.
Willow dropped her double handful of twigs on the ground beside Caleb and turned away. With a barely stifled groan she knelt next to one pack saddle. A few minutes later she had found everything she needed to make biscuits and bacon. When she looked up, Caleb had just finished suspending a small coffee pot from a tripod of branches. Beneath the pot was a fire so tiny he could have covered it with his hat. What little smoke the fire made rose up and was dispersed by the screen of willows. Unless someone rode close by — and downwind — there would be no way to know that anyone was camped in one of the many deep creases that scored the land.
The secrecy of the camp both reassured Willow and made her uneasy at the same time. Caleb’s care said more than any words that he expected to be followed. Even if he hadn’t expected it, obviously he felt that anyone he met in the wild land was as likely to be enemy as friend.
The message of the hidden camp was repeated in the expression on Caleb’s face. Lighted from beneath by small flames, black shadows licking and shifting over his hard features, his eyes were feral with reflected fire and his mouth looked like it had forgotten how to smile. There was nothing of comfort in him for a young woman too tired to hold her eyes open and too cold to take a breath without shivering.
I’ve survivedworse, Willowreminded herselfsilently. Besides, I didn’t hire Caleb for comfort, I hired him to take me to Matt. I’ve got nothing to complain about on that score. We must have come forty miles last night. Sooner started, sooner finished, as Papa used to say.
Willow mixed dough in the cast iron frying pan until the dough was the right consistency to clean the pan’s black surface. Then she stood stiffly and carried meat, dough, and pan to the tiny fire.
«May I use your knife?» she asked.
Caleb glanced up sharply. Willow’s voice was hoarse, either from lack of use or from the damp chill of the long night.
«The side meat,» she explained, not understanding the intensity of his look.
«Sit down,» Caleb said roughly, lifting the pan from her hands. «I’ll take care of it.»
Gratefully, Willow sank to the ground and stretched out, caring little that the earth beneath her was wet and cold. The ground was blessedly motionless and supported her without any effort on her part.
She was asleep before she took two breaths.
When Caleb looked up from slicing meat, he thought Willow had fainted. He came to his feet in a rush, then knelt at her side. The skin of her throat felt cool beneath his fingers, but her pulse was steady and deep and her breathing was regular. He shook his head, divided between irritation and reluctant approval of her stubbornness.
«Fancy woman or not, you’re no quitter,» he muttered.
Glancing up from time to time, Caleb resumed slicing meat into the frying pan. As soon as the coffee water boiled, he added grounds and put it back over the fire to cook. When the coffee was finished, he cooked the meat, stacked it on a piece of bark, and added the biscuit dough to the pan.
While the biscuits cooked, he began systematically cutting thick, dark willow canes as big around as his thumb from the living thicket. He peeled the bark, poured the coffee into his canteen, filled the coffeepot again, and put it over the first to heat. When the water boiled he added a handful of shredded bark and set the pot aside.
«Willow, wake up.»
Caleb’s voice was low yet clear. She didn’t respond. He leaned over and shook her shoulder gently. There was no response. The cloth beneath his hand was cold and wet. He glanced up at the sky, wondering if there was time to dry her skirt over the fire. A second was all it took for him to conclude that he couldn’t take the risk. The sun had already risen, which meant people would be up and stirring along the trail. There were no settlements along this part of the mountain range. Any sign of smoke would be like a beacon pointing toward their camping area. Willow would have to sleep wet.
Caleb put out the fire before he turned toward Willow once more.
«Wake up, honey,» Caleb said, shaking her a little less gently.
Slowly, Willow’s eyes opened, but she wasn’t truly awake. Wide and dazed, her eyes were flecked with gold and green, silver and blue. Her eyelashes were a tawny darkness that emphasized the hazel beauty of her eyes. Against the gleaming pastel dawn, she could see only the silhouette of a flat-crowned hat pushed back over a thatch of very dark hair.
«Matt?» she whispered, reaching up to touch him. «Is it really you? It’s been so long and I’ve been so lonely. …»
Caleb’s expression hardened when he heard Willow call out to her absent lover.
«Wake up, southern lady,» he said coldly. «I cooked breakfast for you, but I’m damned if I’ll feed it to you.» Impatiently, he pulled Willow upright and shoved the canteen of coffee into her hand. «Drink.»
Automatically Willow obeyed the hard edge of command in Caleb’s voice. The coffee was just short of scalding. She swallowed, blinked back tears, and drank again, eager for the strong flavor and life-giving warmth. As she swallowed, she felt the streamer of heat uncurling all the way to her stomach. Shivering with pleasure, she drank more.
«Now eat,» Caleb said, taking the canteen from her.
Willow took the bacon and biscuit that were shoved into her hands and looked at them without interest. She was too tired to go through the motions of chewing. Sighing, she started to lie down again.
