Wolfe couldn’t help wondering if she would ever come to a man’s bed with a fraction of the passion she just had shown in rage. The thought of being the man to draw that primitive sensuality from Jessica brought a swift, elemental reaction from Wolfe’s body that shocked him.
Cursing his masculine vulnerability to a girl who wished him in Hell, Wolfe looked away from Jessica until the hard rush of urgency subsided into an uncomfortable ache. He expected little more in the way of ease. A state of semi-arousal had become so much a part of him when Jessica was nearby that he no longer thought such discomfort unusual.
Wolfe looked back up the slope just in time to see Jessica stumble. At first he thought that her clumsiness came from anger. Then he watched her struggle to her feet, take two steps, and nearly go down again. Something was wrong with her right leg.
«Hold on, Jessi,» Wolfe called. «I’ll help you.»
Jessica didn’t even bother to look back over her shoulder. Nor did she pause in her awkward attempts to get up the steep slope.
With a muttered word, Wolfe sheathed his knife and vaulted into the saddle. He spurred the big mare up the slope. Without bothering to rein in, Wolfe bent over and scooped Jessica up on the way by, holding her firmly against his thigh. When the mare reached the top of the slope, he reined in.
«Sit astride in front of me,» Wolfe said in a clipped voice.
As he spoke, he lifted Jessica over the mare’s chocolate brown mane. The divided riding skirt finally sorted itself out into right and left sides allowing her to sit astride in the big saddle. The intimacy of the arrangement registered instantly on Wolfe’s body, making hot talons of need sink into him. His breath thickened over the kind of words he had never in his life used in a woman’s presence and didn’t want to begin using now.
«Stay put,» he said tightly.
Jessica didn’t answer, but she didn’t try to dismount, either. Wolfe slid off on the right side in a single flowing movement. His hands went to the small, booted foot that poked from thesnowclotted folds of cloth.
«Where does it hurt?»
Jessica glanced at Wolfe. She didn’t have to look far. Even sitting on horseback, she had very little height on him. She hadn’t his strength, either. She had nothing but the certainty that she would rather die than go back to being a bright marker on the gaming table of aristocratic marriages.
She would rather die than live as her mother had.
Memory and nightmare twisted suddenly, sending a shudder through Jessica. Before the tremor had passed, Jessica understood that she had one other certainty, as well: Wolfe would never accept this marriage; he would only become more cruel in his efforts to drive her away.
You will rue the day you forced me into marriage. There are worse things than being caressed by a savage. You shall learn each one of them.
Now, too late, Jessica believed Wolfe. Now, too late, she knew there was nothing left to stand between her and the wind.
«Where does it hurt?» Wolfe repeated impatiently.
«It doesn’t.»
Wolfe’s head snapped up. He had never heard that tone from Jessica before, a sound as unemotional and unmusical as stone. Her eyes were the same way. Opaque.
«I saw you limping.»
«It doesn’t matter.»
The flare of temper in Wolfe’s eyes was replaced by uneasiness.
«Jessi?»
Lost in the echoes of her terrifying discovery, Jessica neither heard nor answered Wolfe’s low query. He hesitated, then began probing the soft leather of Jessica’s boot with fingers that were gentle and firm at the same time. He thought she flinched when he pressed deeply against her ankle, but it was difficult to be certain.
«Can you ride?» Wolfe asked, stepping back.
«I’m riding.»
There was no mockery in Jessica’s words, merely a statement of fact. At the moment, she was riding a horse.
«Jessi, what’s wrong?»
She looked past Wolfe, through him, seeing only the emptiness of the wind, hearing only its low, triumphant cry.
With swift almost vicious movements, Wolfe took up the right stirrup of his saddle. He couldn’t get it short enough for Jessica’s slender foot to reach.
«Bloody hell,» he muttered.
If Jessica heard, she said nothing.
A gust of wind brought the sound of a horse cantering closer. Wolfe glanced up, sawRafe’s big bay coming into sight, and went back to letting the stirrup down to its former length.
The trailRafe was following told its own story. A horse going to its knees, a ragged swath cut by Jessica’s body, and the deep gouges where Wolfe’s big mare had plunged down the slope. Jessica’s bloodless face and Wolfe’s flattened mouth told more of the story, but not enough.
«Is she hurt?» Rafe asked.
«Her right ankle is sore, but it’s her pride that took the worst beating.»
Rafelooked at Jessica. She didn’t notice him. Nor did she seem to notice anything else. There was a quality about the stillness of her body that madeRafe’s eyes narrow. He had seen men who looked like that, men pushed to their limits by pain or starvation or war.
«She’s finished,» Rafe said. «There was a good camping spot back about a mile.»
The wind twisted again, drawing a veil of snow over the cold land.
«We’re going over the Great Divide.» Wolfe vaulted into the saddle behind Jessica. «See that Two-Spot doesn’t get lost. The pack horses are used to following him.»
A touch of Wolfe’s spurs lifted the brown mare into a trot. A hard arm came around Jessica, holding her in place. Her body went rigid, but she said nothing. Nor did she fight him. She did nothing but sink farther and farther into herself, looking for a way out of the trap in which she had so brutally tangled herself and Wolfe.
She found none but to endure and then endure some more.
I can’t.
And pray that Wolfe would change because she could not.
I can’t.
I must be strong. Just for a bit longer. A few minutes.
The minutes passed.
A few more.
When those minutes passed, Jessica asked herself for a few more, and then a few more, until half an hour had gone by, an hour, then two. Three.
Slowly, a breath at a time, she endured, learning how to live without Wolfe as her talisman, learning how to survive in a world ruled by the soulless wind of nightmare and memory combined.
10
«Wolfe, I can’t believe it’s really you! Caleb said the high passes were buried in snow after the last storm.»
Willow’s husky contralto cry made Jessica’s lips flatten into an unhappy line. She should have expected the bloody paragon to have a beautiful voice. Rather grimly, Jessica waited to see what the paragon looked like, but even when Willow stepped from the house, she was still concealed by the dense shadows of the porch.
«It’s me, all right,» Wolfe said, smiling as he dismounted and crossed the ground with long strides to give Willow a hug. «I’ve brought you a present.»
«Seeing you is present enough,» she said, laughing and holding out her arms.
