"Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowell Elizabeth)

3

Eden scrambled through the loose debris and threw herself down at Nevada's side. Even as she ripped off her gloves and felt for his pulse, she saw the brassy glitter of spent shell casings scattered on top of the rocky rubble. A rifle was still gripped in Nevada's big right hand. The skin of his left wrist was cool but not chilled. He must have been conscious at some time since his fall, for he had fired the rifle repeatedly.

"Nevada," Eden said, pitching her voice to be both reassuring and distinct. Still talking, she moved back from him so that she could shrug out of her backpack and down jacket. "Nevada, can you hear me?"

A shudder rippled through his powerful body. His eyes opened, a cougar's eyes, trapped, dangerous. The fingers holding the rifle tightened. Eden didn't notice, for she was spreading her bright red jacket over his chest.

"Do you hurt anywhere?" she asked.

When Nevada's eyes focused on her, they changed. Life and light came back into them. He shook his head as though to clear it.

"If you can do that, you didn't break your neck."

Relief was bright in Eden's voice. Growing up on a homestead in Alaska had taught her the basics of first aid – splinting breaks, stitching up gashes, and the dangers of hypothermia, but spine injuries were beyond her skills.

And the thought of Nevada hurt bothered Eden deeply.

She pulled off the knitted ski hat she had worn underneath her jacket hood. A moment later she was leaning over Nevada, stretching the hat to cover Nevada's short black hair, tucking stray strands in, her face only inches from his, her breath bathing his cheeks above his beard, her soft hair touching him when she turned her head.

"There. That will help you to stay warm."

"Eden? What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Ask Baby. He dragged me out of a nice warm cabin and insisted I go for a walk in the snow."

Gently Eden lowered Nevada's head back to the ground, cushioned the rocks beneath with one of her jacket's quilted sleeves, and looked closely at Nevada's pale green eyes. Both pupils were the same size and he was studying her with an intensity that was almost tangible. Whatever else had happened in his fall, his faculties were intact.

"Thank God," Eden said too softly for Nevada to hear.

But he did, just as he felt the rushing warmth of the sigh she gave, as though the weight of the mountainside had just slipped from her shoulders.

"Baby must have found you earlier, sensed something was wrong and came back to get me," Eden continued, tucking her bright jacket around Nevada's broad chest.

Nevada blinked, scattering snowflakes that had tangled in his thick black eyelashes. "Be damned. Thought I saw a wolf a while back, but there aren't any wolves around here, so I chalked it up to taking a header down the mountain."

"You did that, all right. Where do you hurt?"

"Nowhere."

Eden looked skeptical. "Then why are you lying here?"

"My left foot is wedged against the big boulder. When I couldn't dig myself out, I began firing my rifle three rounds at a time."

Eden nodded. Three spaced shots were a universal come-running signal. "Baby must have heard the shots or caught your scent on the wind." She turned back to the knapsack, pulled out the canteen, and took off the top. The coffee was still hot. She put the canteen in Nevada's hands. "This will help to warm you. Drink as much as you can while I look at your foot."

Nevada inhaled deeply. "Damn. That smells like real coffee."

"Guaranteed strong enough to grow hair on the bottom of your feet," Eden agreed as she began pulling on her gloves.

The corner of Nevada's mouth shifted unnoticeably beneath his beard as he lifted the canteen and drank deeply. The hot, rich liquid spread through his body like a benediction, warming everything it touched. Reluctantly he stopped drinking.

"You want some?" he asked.

"I'm plenty warm," Eden said. "Drink as much as you can hold."

"That will be all of it."

"Good."

While Nevada finished the coffee, Eden began pushing loose rock away from his hips and legs, clearing a way to the trapped ankle. As she worked, she tried not to notice the clean, powerful lines of his body. It was impossible. He was a large, healthy male animal, and he called to her senses in ways that disconcerted her.

Nevada licked the last drop of coffee from his mustache and watched Eden working over his legs. Her motions were sure, efficient and productive. Obviously she wasn't going to come apart in an emergency.

He liked that as much as he liked the breasts swaying beneath her ski jersey and pullover sweater and the decidedly female curves of her hips. But admiring Eden's body was having a pronounced effect on his own, so he concentrated on her face instead, memorizing the smooth skin of her cheeks, the changing colors of her hazel eyes, the tempting sweetness of her mouth.

Eden looked up, sensing Nevada's intense regard. He shifted his glance to the slope.

"You see any horses on the way here?" he asked.

"Just tracks. A big horse and a smaller one. Both are wearing winter shoes. Both are drifting south and east in front of the wind." Stones clattered and rattled, pushed by Eden's hands as she resumed digging. "I might have seen one of them under a big evergreen about five minutes up the trail, but I couldn't be sure. The smaller horse is dragging a rope or a rein. Neither of the horses is limping, although the bigger one rolled down the same slope you did. If there was any blood, it wasn't much. So relax. Your horses are better off than you are."

"Big horse. Small horse. Winter shoes. Rope." Nevada looked at Eden's clean profile and asked neutrally, "Where did you learn how to track?"

"Alaska."

"Horses?" he asked skeptically.

"Cats," Eden said, struggling to shove aside a rock that was smaller than a pony, but not much. "I studied lynx in the north woods. I came to Colorado to study cougars. After cats, tracking horses is a piece of cake."

Nevada's eyes changed, intensity returning. Eden was going to be living in the remote area around Wildfire Canyon, tracking the cougars that had returned to the Rocking M.

And so was he.

"Damn," Eden said under her breath. She braced her shoulder and tried again to shift the smaller of the two boulders that had trapped Nevada's foot. "Did you try pulling your foot out of your boot?"

"Yes. Rest before you start sweating."

She hesitated, then nodded. He was right. She sat back on her heels and breathed deeply, trying not to let her worry show. Nevada's left foot was securely wedged between a rock that was too big for her to shift and the massive boulder that had broken the back of the landslide. Loose rubble slithered and stirred and eased downhill every time she tried to dig him out.

"How's your head?" As Eden asked the question, her eyes were searching the slope for something to use as a lever against the smaller of the two boulders that were holding Nevada captive.

"I'll live."

"Dizzy? Double vision? Nausea?"

"No. I have a hard skull."

She smiled without looking at him, still searching for a lever. "I won't touch that line. How bad is your foot?"

"Cold is a good anesthetic."

"Too good. You were unconscious when I got here."

"I would have awakened in ten minutes and fired three more rounds."

Nevada's certainty made Eden look back at him.

"Hypothermia-" she began.

"It's not a problem yet," he interrupted flatly. "I've been a lot colder under a lot worse conditions and functioned just fine."

Eden tugged off one glove, grabbed Nevada's wrist and started counting. His pulse was strong. Cold hadn't slowed his body processes yet. And the quart of hot coffee would help hold the chill of the ground at bay.

"All right." Unconsciously Eden caressed Nevada's left wrist and his palm with her fingertips, reassured by his tangible heat and the resilience of his flesh, like Baby, Nevada fairly radiated an elemental vitality. "Where did you learn to sleep and wake yourself whenever you wanted?"

"Afghanistan." His voice was clipped, foreclosing any other questions.

"They have some big mountains there, and a lot of mines," Eden said absently. She looked past him to the forest, focusing on a piece of deadfall that might work as a lever. "Are you a geologist?"

"No."

Despite the warning in Nevada's voice, Eden was beginning to ask another question when she felt wetness on her fingertips. She looked down and saw a trickle of blood across Nevada's hand. Ignoring his brief protest, she eased off his leather glove. A jagged, partially healed cut went across the back of his hand. The scab had been broken in one place. Fresh blood oozed slowly toward his tanned wrist.

Eden breathed Nevada's name and stroked the uninjured flesh on either side of the cut. Memories of anger and fear and the razor edges of a freshly broken beer bottle lanced through her.

"You should have let me take care of you," she said quietly.

"I don't need a woman to take care of me. I never have. I never will."

This time the warning in Nevada's voice got through.

"Really?" Eden asked casually. "Then I hope you're comfortable, cowboy. It may be a long time before a man comes along this particular piece of mountainside."

There was a tight silence before the left corner of Nevada's mouth shifted very slightly.

"You must be the exception that proves the rule," he said.

"Gosh, I'm so glad you explained that to me. I was beginning to wonder if you hadn't hit your head too hard on one of those rocks."

Suddenly Eden frowned and shifted her grip on Nevada's wrist. "Are you sure you feel all right? Your pulse is pretty fast right now."

"My resting pulse is in the low sixties."

"But-"

"I'm not resting."

"You have a point. But your pulse has increased in the past minute or two."

"If a man were leaning over me and stroking my wrist like a lover, my pulse wouldn't have budged."

It took a few moments for the meaning of Nevada's words to get past Eden's concern for him. A rising tide of color marked the exact instant of her understanding that she was cradling his hand between her own. Even worse, she was running her fingertips caressingly from the pulse point on his wrist to the base of his fingers and back again.

"Sorry," Eden said, dropping Nevada's hand. She pulled on her glove again and she spoke quickly. "I'm a tactile kind of person. When I'm nervous or worried or thinking hard, I tend to stroke things. You were within reach."

It was partly true. The rest of the truth was that there was something about Nevada Blackthorn that made Eden want to stroke him, to learn his textures and pleasures, to make him smile, to warm him, to… heal him.

And then set him free?

There was no answer except Eden's silent, inner cry of pain at the thought of Nevada turning away from her again. The depth of her reaction was irrational, and she knew it. She also knew it was as deep as a night sky, and as real. Knowing that, she stopped fighting her response to Nevada. Working in the wild as much as she did had taught her to accept things that did not make sense within the narrow cultural limits of modern rationality. "Tactile, huh?" Nevada drawled. "Must make life interesting for the men around you."

"The only men in my life have fur and fangs and go on all fours."

Stones rattled as Eden went back to work clearing debris around Nevada's trapped ankle. It seemed that for every two handfuls she pushed aside, a handful more slithered down to fill the depression.

"Can you reach my backpack?" Eden asked after a few minutes.

Instead of answering, Nevada twisted his body, reached, and snagged the backpack. Any lingering questions Eden might have had as to Nevada's hidden injuries vanished. Except for the trapped foot, Nevada moved with supreme ease.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"Not me. You. This is trickier than I thought it would be. There's a survival blanket in the backpack. Turn the black side out."

Nevada didn't argue. Though neither of them had mentioned it, both knew it would take time to free his ankle – if it could be done at all. Even with the help of hot coffee, his big body couldn't hold heat indefinitely. Lying on the cold ground was slowly sapping his living warmth.

He opened the backpack and sorted through its contents with growing approval. Eden's fingers might be as hot and gentle as sunlight, and her breath might be as sweetly heady as wine, but she was no foolish little flower when it came to living in the wild. She had everything she might reasonably expect to need in an emergency, except a weapon.

Speculatively Nevada looked over at Baby, who was watching him with yellow eyes that missed nothing.

Maybe she doesn't need a gun after all. I'll bet Baby would go to war for her. Hell, so did I a few days ago.

I wonder if Jones has figured out yet just how lucky he was.

A snap of Nevada's wrist unrolled the survival blanket. He sat upright. The bright red of Eden's snow jacket slid away from his body as he put the empty canteen in the backpack. Wind blew across his chest, penetrating even his own shearling jacket's thick protection, making him shiver in a reflexive effort to warm himself.

Instantly Eden was at Nevada's side. She put the backpack aside and helped him to wrap the thin incredibly warm material of the survival blanket around his body. She tried not to notice the intimacy of Nevada's breath on her face when she leaned over him, urging him to lie back. She tried not to breathe in fast and hard, taking his breath into her body, shivering at the realization that even in such a small way he was a part of her now.

"Lie down," Eden said, her voice low. "There's less of you for the wind to work on that way." Methodically she folded up her jacket and made a pillow for Nevada's head. "Here. I don't need this while I'm digging."

Nevada's senses were far too acute for him to have missed the telltale catching of Eden's breath the new huskiness of her voice, the concern that went beyond that of one human being for another who needed help. She was intensely aware of him as a man.

Grimly Nevada tried to still his body's violent response to the knowledge that Eden was as drawn to him as he was to her. He succeeded in quelling the rush of his blood, but only up to a point. When Eden went to pull the survival blanket more snugly around his hips, she was confronted by the one thing Nevada couldn't control – the hard evidence of his response to her. The mixture of emotions on her face when she saw the fit of his jeans would have made anyone but Nevada smile.

"Reassured about my health?" he asked in a dry tone.

"Try astonished," Eden said faintly.

"Why? I'm a man, in case you hadn't noticed."

"In case you hadn't noticed, you're a man who is in a hell of a jam at the moment."

"So?"

"So I wouldn't think you'd be feeling very, er, lively," Eden muttered. She ducked her head, knowing her cheeks were red from much more than a cold wind.

"I accepted a long time ago that nobody gets out of life alive," Nevada said matter-of-factly. "Once you accept that you stop worrying about the details of when and where and how. Dead now or dead fifty years from now, dead is dead. And alive is alive, all the way, full max. I'm alive and you turn me on deep and quick and hard. I don't like that one damn bit, but there's nothing I can do about it."

Eden looked at him, a question in her eyes that she wouldn't ask. Nevada knew what that question was. He knew what the answer was, too.

"I don't like being turned on by you because you still believe in fairy tales like love. I know better. That's why I told you to stay away from me. But it didn't work out that way, did it?"

Slowly Eden searched Nevada's silver-green eyes, wondering what had made him the way he was and what might heal him so that he could live completely again.

"No, it didn't work out that way," Eden said, her voice both gentle and determined. "Life is always unexpected, Nevada. That's why laughter is vital and very real. And life always seeks life. That's why love is vital and very real. Not fairy tale. Reality."

"Sex is real," he said flatly. "Love is a game. I'm too old to play games and you're too young to do anything else, so finish digging me out of this hole and say goodbye."

Eden looked at Nevada's icy eyes and knew that arguing with him would be futile. Yet she couldn't help reaching out to him, wanting to stroke the smooth skin of his cheek and the sleek pelt of his beard, to soothe and reassure him that he wasn't alone within the bleak world of his choosing.

With shocking speed Nevada's hand locked around Eden's wrist, preventing her from touching him.

"I'm trapped, but I'm a long way from helpless," he said coldly. "Dig or get the hell out of here and leave me alone."

Eden had no doubt that Nevada meant it: he would sooner lie trapped in a snowstorm than submit to a kind of touching that had nothing to do with sex.

The pain that came with Eden's understanding froze the breath in her throat, making her ache for whatever wounding had caused so deep a scar to form within Nevada, sealing off all emotion except an icy kind of rage.

Sudden tears burned behind Eden's eyes. She looked away quickly, knowing Nevada would have even less use for her tears than he had for her comforting touch. Saying nothing, she came to her feet and walked away from him. The falling snow was much thicker now, limiting visibility to less than ten feet. Baby whined softly in confusion, then trotted after Eden, leaving Nevada alone beneath the lowering sky.

When Eden returned five minutes later dragging a sturdy branch taller than she was, Nevada was just raising the rifle to his shoulder.

"Save the three bullets," Eden said. "There's no one else around to care. You're stuck with me."

Nevada lowered his rifle, grabbed the jacket he had been using as a pillow and fired it in Eden's direction. "Put this on. It's cold."

Eden didn't bother to argue that she didn't need the jacket as long as she kept moving. Nor did she try to put the jacket back beneath Nevada's head as she wanted to do. She simply stepped over the bright mound of cloth and knelt near Nevada's trapped foot, examining it closely.

Nothing had changed. Just above the ankle bone, Nevada's boot was caught between heavy stones. After a struggle that left her breathing rapidly, she managed to wedge one end of the thick branch beneath the smaller of the two boulders.

Smaller, Eden thought with a fear that she concealed from Nevada. Lord. That stone has to weigh more than Nevada and me put together. I hope the branch I found is strong enough. I hope I'm strong enough. By the time I could go for help and get back, it would be too late.

"Do you still have feeling in your foot?" she asked tightly.

"Some."

"Too bad. This is going to hurt. Do try not to cry, cowboy. It would hurt my feelings."

Despite Nevada's determination to keep Eden at a distance, her deadpan instructions made the corner of his mouth move slightly. He shook his head and said, "I'll do my best."

"That's all I can ask, isn't it?" she said beneath her breath, thinking he couldn't hear. "Of you, of me, of anything."

Nevada did hear, but there was nothing he could say or do. Eden was right and he knew it. He just didn't like it.

Eden bent her legs, braced her shoulder beneath the branch and then began to straighten, pouring every bit of her feminine strength and determination into moving the stone, straining against a weight she was never meant to lift.

Putting his free foot against the smaller boulder, Nevada shoved hard. It had done no good before. It did no good now. He had no leverage, nothing but brute strength and no way to apply it effectively. He could wrench his trapped leg but he couldn't free himself.

Helplessly, his much greater strength useless, Nevada watched Eden strain against the stone again and again, spending herself recklessly in an attempt to free him. He cursed steadily, silently, wishing that he could do something, anything, to lighten her burden. She was too slender, too fragile, too gentle – like life itself, a flame burning against a vast icy darkness; she would break her heart and have nothing to show for it but the memory of pain and failure.

"Eden," Nevada said roughly, unable to bear watching her an instant longer. "Eden, stop!"

If she heard, she ignored him. A ragged sound was dragged from her throat as she strained to straighten her body, and in doing so force the boulder aside just a little, her muscles straining, just a few fractions of an inch – her body screaming – just enough for Nevada's foot to slide free of the rocky vise – her vision blurring and her breath burning in her chest until she sobbed.

The boulder grated as it shifted minutely.

It was all Nevada had been waiting for and more than he had thought possible. He shoved hard with his free leg against the boulder and at the same time yanked his trapped leg backward, ignoring the pain that shot through his ankle. After a few agonizing seconds his foot wrenched free of the boot and the rocky vise.

"I'm out!"

Instantly Eden let go of the branch and sank to her knees, breathing in great gulps, trying to get enough oxygen to keep the world from receding down an endless black tunnel. When she finally succeeded, she realized that Nevada was kneeling next to her, his arms around her, supporting her. With a broken sigh she leaned against his strength.

"Sorry about the boot," Eden said when she had enough breath to spare for words.

"Never fit right anyway. Too big. Damn good thing, too."

Nevada leaned to the side, snagged Eden's jacket with one hand and began stuffing her into it. When he was finished, he caught her face between his big hands.

"Do you hurt anywhere?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Don't ever do anything that stupid again. You can tear yourself up inside and never know until it's too late," Nevada said savagely. Then, before she could say anything, he asked, "Can you walk to the cabin?"

Eden nodded.

"Get going," he said. "You're sweaty. Don't stop to rest until you're in dry clothes."

"But-"

"Move."

"What about you?" Eden persisted.

"I can take care of myself."

As he spoke, Nevada automatically wiped snow off the rifle, checked the load and the firing mechanism. Satisfied that everything was in working order, he used the butt of the rifle to lever himself to his feet. Circulation was returning to his left foot, but slowly. With the renewed flowing of blood came excruciating pain. Nevada ignored it. Using the rifle as a makeshift crutch, he took a step forward.

And fell full-length in the snow.

Even as Nevada rolled onto his side to lever himself upright again, Eden spoke quickly to Baby. The wolf hit Nevada squarely in the chest, knocked him back into the snow and put one very large paw on his chest. Nevada realized instantly that he wasn't going to get up again without fighting Baby. The prospect wasn't inviting.

Eden bent over Nevada, survival blanket in hand. "Wrap up. I'll be back with the horses as soon as possible."

Before she could straighten again, Nevada's hand flashed out and snared her wrist in an immovable grip. His eyes were as cold and bleak as his voice.

"Baby or no Baby, you damn well better be in dry clothes when I see you again, lady."