Chasing the Sunset(36)

“We are going to have to find someplace to shelter for a while,” he said grimly. “I can barely see a foot in front of my face, and this rain is cold as a witch’s . . . well, anyway it is cold. I do not want you coming down with an inflammation of the lungs. There is an old cabin about a mile from here, and if we are lucky, the walls are still standing.”

“But we cannot be that far from the house,” Maggie said, her teeth chattering together. “How long could it take to get there?”

“We are at least five n miles from the farm, through heavy forest,” he informed her coldly. “I do not know how you got so far off track, but I for one do not intend to suffer any more than is necessary. We are stopping until the rain quits. The others who are searching will have sense enough to go home out of this weather, and when I do not show up soon they will be smart enough to figure out that I found you.”

His voice left no room for argument, and Maggie said not another word, though words of

protest rose to her lips. The thought of being trapped with Nick in some crude cabin sent her

pulse fluttering and her heart pounding, and not necessarily with fear.

The cabin did indeed have walls and a roof, and that was about the best thing that could be said about it. It was filled with dust and cobwebs, and precious little else. After seeing the inside of the one-room shack, Nick brought Jet right into the cabin with them. He shrugged when Maggie looked at him skeptically.

“Why should he suffer?” he said, throwing the wet saddle over a three-legged table propped against the grimy wall. “It is not going to hurt the inside of this building, that is for sure.” He wrinkled his nose. “Or make it smell any worse.”

The cabin did have a strong smell of old sweat and mildew, but it was dry, and Maggie was determined to make the best of this situation. She wiped down the two rickety chairs with her wet blanket, then held the blanket out the window in the rain to rinse it. Then she wrung the water out of it. Since the window did not even possess a piece of oilcloth to cover it, that was not hard to do.

Nick peered up the chimney and pronounced it clean enough to use without setting the building on fire, and proceeded to rummage through the pack he’d had tied on behind the saddle. Maggie looked at the contents of the pack in astonishment. It was an assortment of bandages, medicines, foods, and blankets. Nick looked up and caught her looking. He shrugged his shoulders, and then turned his head away.

“I did not know what condition you would be in when I found you. We all thought you might have had an accident,” he said, and Maggie felt a burst of guilt as she realized they had probably all been envisioning her dead or hurt badly at the very least. “You should not have bothered cleaning those chairs,” he told her. “I am just going to bust them up and use them for

firewood.”

“Use the table,” she protested. “I do not want to sit on this filthy floor.”

“I will burn the table, too,” he said. “Spread out one of these blankets, or sit on the saddle. I will pull it over in front of the fire after I get it started.”

Maggie gave up the chair without a struggle, for she was getting awfully chilled in her sodden clothes. A fire did sound good, and when Nick broke up the chair and thrust it into the merrily blazing flames, she was not sorry a bit. She held out her hands to the blaze from her perch on the saddle, and soaked up the warmth like a flower soaks up sun.

“You are going to have to get out of those wet clothes and wrap yourself in a blanket if you want to get warm,” Nick said. He held up a hand to forestall any opposition Maggie had, before she had even opened her mouth. “I am not trying to seduce you, Maggie,” he said harshly. “It is the very last thing on my mind right now. I do not want you getting sick, and there is something to cover you up with. It is not like you will be sitting here naked with me.”

Maggie blushed a fiery red at his words but gave in quietly, and Nick turned and stared down into the fire, and marveled at what a convincing liar he could be sometimes. He did have seduction on his mind because the thought never left his mind when Maggie was around. He could hear Maggie undressing behind him right now, and his ever-ready body was springing to life at the rustling sounds. He clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, but all that did was bring up a picture of the way Maggie had been in the library, sprawled wantonly across the table with her clothing in disarray and her eyes begging him to take her. Lord, but he wanted her that way again!

He had told her again and again to find someone else, that he was off limits to her, but he had not meant it and had not actually thought that she would go out and do it. He could not sleep for remembering her with Duncan Murdoch, could not get the image of her passion-tousled hair and reddened lips out of his mind. No matter what he had told her, he did not want her to be with anyone else but him. He had been nearly incoherent with rage that night and it was a pure wonder that he had not shot the man. If he had been carrying a gun at the time, he probably would have. He had hated her in that moment, but that feeling had not lasted. He could not blame her for wanting somebody else–had he not known all along that all she felt for him was infatuation? Now he felt a sharp sorrow at losing Maggie, and he was afraid that his feelings for her went much deeper than lust. He was very much afraid that he felt more than infatuation, more than just wanting her in his bed. His mind shied away from that thought.

“You can turn around now,” said Maggie’s husky voice, and Nick turned slowly, sucking in his breath at the sight of her. She had taken off that rag of a dress and draped it over the chair he had not broken up into firewood yet. Wearing only a chemise, wrapped in a blanket, with her hair down around her shoulders, she was the loveliest thing that he had ever seen and all of a sudden, Nick had to tell her so.

“You are so beautiful, Maggie,” he said quietly, his eyes seeking hers. He wanted to touch her; his hands ached to fill themselves with her flesh.

“Stop it,” she said. “I am wet, and dirty, and disheveled. There is nothing beautiful about me right now.”

He smiled a crooked, tender smile at her. “I am not going to argue with you. Come sit by the fire and warm up.”

Maggie perched gingerly on the saddle, clutching the blanket around her, and Nick sat on

the floor right beside her. They stared into the crackling flames, with Nick throwing in an occasional piece of wood from the broken-up table, not saying a word.

“Martha Fawcett is very pretty,” Maggie said suddenly.

Nick shrugged. “I guess she is, if you like that type. She is always going on about how wonderful New York is, and I get tired of hearing that. To hear her tell it, it is the next best thing to Paradise. She is too fussy for me sometimes, will not ride because the wind musses up her hair, does not like to go fast in the buggy, does not like to be outside . . . She is pretty, but she is like a doll, one you have got to keep inside all the time so that you do not get it all dirty.”

“If you do not really like her, why is she your lover?” Maggie asked sharply.

Nick silently cursed Kathleen and her big mouth, because he just knew she was the one who had spilled it; Kathleen and Martha had hated one another for years, not that you would ever know it to be around either one of them. They did their best to out-sweet each other, and it was enough to give a man a stomach-ache when he was trapped in the same room with both of them.

“She is not my lover anymore,” he said, and then felt angry that he was explaining himself to her. "She has not been for a long time."

She had no right to question him, not anymore. He poked viciously at the fire, making sparks flare up and rain out onto the floor beside them. Nick moved his boots out of the way hurriedly.

"Because she’s been gone for a year!" Maggie said sharply. "Do you plan to take up right where you left off?"

“No, I do not, and why would you even care?” He turned to her, his eyes glittering with suppressed emotion. “You have got a lover, why shouldn’t I have one?”

“You are such an idiot, Nick!” Maggie cried.

He turned to her, grabbed her shoulders fiercely and shook her until her hair flew wildly about her face. Maggie cried out, and he put his face down close to hers, almost touching, then, goaded beyond endurance, pulled her up to her knees to meet his impassioned kiss. He crushed her mouth beneath his, his hands hurtful as he tangled one in her hair and pulled her hard

against him with the other. Maggie gave a little whimper of mixed fear and desire. He let her go, his face horrified, and slumped to the ground in front of her with dejection in every curve of his body.

“I am sorry, Maggie, I am so sorry,” he whispered stiffly. “I would not hurt you for the world. I do not know what happened.”

Tears splashed out of her eyes and Maggie put up a hand as if to try and hold them in.

“It is all right,” she said, but her voice quavered, and she did not resist when Nick drew her down onto his lap. She turned her face into his chest as he crooned to her, irrationally drawing comfort from the very one who had just hurt her. His big hand stroked her hair and cradled her against him.