Smelling of smoke and covered with soot, Angus headed for the creek. He needed to cool down anyway. He and Brick weren’t that much alike sometimes. He had wanted to go after T.D., too, which told him that Jinx was right about ordering them not to. He’d never been impulsive. Now wasn’t the time to start.
And what if some of T.D.’s men hit the herd, scattering it, while he and Brick were off looking for him?
Reaching the creek, he stopped under a large old pine tree and pulled off his boots. Pulling his gun, he pushed it down in one of his boots and then took off his belt and tossed it beside the boots.
He considered stripping down, but realized his clothing could use a wash. Or at least a dip in water. He stepped to the edge of the stream, picking a dark spot where the water ran deep and then in a few strides dove headfirst into the shimmering pool.
He’d known it would be freezing cold. Just as he’d known it would take his breath away. But knowing was one thing; feeling it clear to his bones was another.
He shot up out of the water and let out a yell and then a laugh.
“How’s the water?” asked Jinx from the shadow of the large pine.
“Warm,” he lied, grinning as he watched her pull off her boots, then her holstered gun, before she did what he had done.
He moved aside to give her plenty of room. She dove in and came up fast, spitting out the icy water as she did. He couldn’t help but laugh.
“Cold enough for you?” he asked, still grinning even though he realized he couldn’t feel his lower extremities.
“I’ve felt colder,” she said and then laughed as the two of them rushed to the shore, grateful to be out of the snow-fed water.
Angus pulled off his shirt and hung it over a limb to dry in the sun. A warming spring breeze rippled over his bare flesh.
Jinx had sat down on a rock, leaning back to close her eyes. “Maybe your brother is right,” she said.
“Brick is seldom right,” he joked. “That you even think he might be proves you’ve lost your mind.”
She smiled and opened her eyes to look at him. “If anything happens to you and the others because of me...”
“We knew what we were getting into.”
She studied him on the rock where he’d sat down beside the stream. He’d stretched out his long legs in the hopes that his jeans would dry some in the sun without him having to remove them. “Ella told me. Your mother asked you to come help me?”
“It’s what neighbors do.”
She laughed at that and she freed her hair from the braid she’d had it in. The wet coppery mass of curls fell around her face, dropping down past her breasts. “We’re hardly neighbors.”
“We’re ranchers. Ranchers help other ranchers.”
“Maybe where you live.”
“Don’t blame the other ranchers. They’re in a tough spot.”
She met his gaze. “Do you always give everyone the benefit of the doubt?”
“Hardly. But I try,” he admitted. “Few people want to get in the middle of a family squabble.”
“Is that what this is?” she asked, holding his gaze. “But the three of you did.”
He chuckled. “By now you must realize that we lack good sense.”
She pulled her gaze away to look toward the stream. “I hate that everyone knows my troubles.”
“Don’t. We all need help sometimes.”
She smiled, shaking her head. “You must be wondering what I saw in T.D. What would make me marry someone like him?”
“That’s your business.”
“Still, you must think me a fool.”
He laughed softly, turning his face up to the sun. “If you’d met my last girlfriend... We all have a mistake in our past that we’d like to forget.”
“You’re an awfully nice man, Angus Savage.”
He could feel the sun warming his chest and hear the quiet babble of the stream. But what really warmed him were her words. Sitting here with her, he felt a contentment that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
His eyes opened as he sensed her closeness. She stood over him for a moment, before she sat down next to him and turned until she was facing him only inches part. He held his breath as she reached toward him. His heart thundered in his chest as he felt her cool fingertips trace the scar on his chin.
“I’M CURIOUS,” JINX SAID, her voice sounding strange even to her. “How did you get that scar?”
She watched Angus swallow, then seem to relax, his blue eyes bright with humor. “Well, it’s kind of an amusing story.” He smiled. “I got pushed out of a barn loft when I was eleven.”
“That’s awful.”
He sat up straighter until they were eye to eye. “It was my fault. I asked for it.”
“You asked to be pushed out of a barn loft?”
“I was teasing her. She warned me that if I didn’t stop she would knock me into tomorrow.”
“She?” Jinx felt goose bumps break out over her skin and for a moment she could smell the fresh hay in the barn, feel the breeze on her face, remember that cute cowboy who’d taunted her. Her heart began to pound.
His smile broadened. “She was a spitfire, as fiery as her hair back then.”
Jinx felt heat rush to her cheeks. “Tell me her name wasn’t JoRay McCallahan.”
“Sorry, I’m afraid so,” he said and laughed. “I wondered if you would remember.”
“When I saw you, I thought I’d met you before, but I couldn’t think of when that might have been. Then Max told me that my mother took me up to the Cardwell Ranch for a short visit when I was about nine.” She groaned. “Your mother must have been horrified by what I did to you.” Jinx didn’t think she could be more embarrassed.
He shook his head. “My mother said, ‘What did you do,
