Running Wild Read online

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  Her hands, encased in light kid gloves, itched to feel the rasp of whiskers against her bare skin as she ran her fingers across his strong, stubborn chin and over his cheek, cold from the afternoon chill. And then further back, through his hair to push off his hat, just seconds before covering his mouth. . . .

  She jerked her mind away from the image, scolding her overactive imagination. Having spent almost two weeks in Nicholas’s company, her desire for him had reached an almost fevered pitch. She was about to shoot a rifle, she reminded herself firmly, which ought to be the prime focus of her attention. It only added to that wanton craving, however, for she clearly remembered the kiss that the rabid cougar had interrupted. In the middle of the night, when the demon-nightmares woke her, recollection of that kiss helped put her back to sleep.

  Come morning, though, she’d remember his indifference afterwards.

  The contrast was driving her to distraction.

  “This is it,” he said, as they emerged from the woods into a clearing. He halted.

  “It” was horseshoe shaped and large, the size of a couple of tennis courts. At one end, someone had piled hay bales, one on top of another, against a steep hill. At the other, several crates lay lined up next to each other.

  “I’m going to shoot hay bales?”

  He crossed to the crates and leaned his rifle against them, then laid the sack of bullets on the ground. “No ma’am, you’re going to shoot cans.” He strode across the clearing to a pile of cans. She eyed the rifle and then leaned over to touch it. He looked up from gathering an armful of cans. “You’ll want to hold off handlin’ it until I’m done here.”

  “Nicholas,” she said, tilting her head and widening her eyes, “don’t you trust me?”

  He threw her a quick grin. “Here’s your first lesson—always have a healthy respect for firearms. Even the most cautious man can accidentally shoot somebody. Fact is, a lot more people are killed from carelessness than from purpose.”

  “Yes, I know intimately how good you are with a rifle,” she said as he crossed the range to line cans up on the hay bales.

  He returned. “And,” he answered, “I’ve never accidentally shot anybody or anything. I never lose respect for the deadliness of a weapon. They aren’t toys—ever.”

  His countenance was grave, the tone of his voice cool and firm. His eyes held hers steadily, entirely bereft of merriment. She nodded. “All right. I understand.” With that she carefully tucked her emotions—passion, excitement—away.

  “Good. Now, for your first time firing a weapon, you’ll need to be as steady as possible. That means kneeling.” He passed his eyes over her skeptically. “Come to think on it, those might not be the best clothes for this.”

  Star glanced down at her grey tweed Ulster, tightly cuffed at her wrists. Under it, she wore a yellow muslin frock patterned by white roses, the cheapest dress she owned and one of the few that fit without a bustle. She’d forgone other ornament as well, except for a ribbon around her tightly plaited hair. In fact, she felt quite naked, but not in the way she’d like to be with Nicholas.

  Perhaps she had not tucked those emotions away quite as well as she thought.

  “It’s the best I have,” she answered.

  “You could ruin ’em.”

  “If so, then I shall keep them as my firing clothes.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “You expect to do this often?”

  She smiled. “Doesn’t practice make perfect?”

  “Yeah,” he said, rubbing the stubble on the side of his face as he held her gaze. “Yeah. O.K.” He took a breath, then picked up the rifle. “First things first, you need to get to know your weapon. You’ll shoot best if you understand how it works. Here, you can take it now,” he said handing it to her.

  Once more, she marveled at its weight. He carried it as if it weighed no more than a twig. “What kind of gun is it?”

  “Winchester, 73. There are newer rifles, but this is my favorite,” he said, stepping toward her. “Here, hold it sideways, and I’ll tell you the parts. Don’t point it at me. Never point a gun at anybody unless you’re going to shoot ’em. Even if you’d swear on your life that it’s unloaded. Sometimes things go wrong. And it’s just good sense never to shoot at a person or animal unless you’re ready to kill. ’Course you don’t have to shoot to kill, but you oughta be ready for the consequences. O.K., now this triangular wooden part here, that’s the stock. When you aim, you put it against your shoulder and lay your cheek against it and look through the sight. . .”

  For the next twenty minutes, he told her the names of all the parts and the way they worked. He was all business, his voice deep and delightfully authoritative as he explained how to clean the gun once she’d fired it and the importance of keeping it clean. Even though she never had any intention of cleaning a gun, he made her go through the motions, peering down the barrel to see how it should look. Then he took an oilcan from his sack and showed her where to oil it.

  “Got all that?” he asked finally.

  She smiled and gave him a little shrug of her shoulders. “Some of it. You don’t honestly expect me to remember everything, do you? I’m not that quick a study.”

  “Quick enough, I’d reckon. O.K., now we’ll move onto aiming it.”

  “Oh wonderful! Where are the bullets?”

  “In the bag,” he said dryly, “where they’ll stay until you learn to aim.”

  Her shoulders sank. “I still don’t get to shoot it?”

  “Not yet. Remember what I said. Never aim unless you’re gonna shoot.”

  She scowled at him. “Yes, but it’s getting late and I still haven’t heard so much as a bang.”

  He pushed back his hat and grinned. “Bang.”

  She laughed. “A real bang! The next thing you’ll be telling me is that I have to start with a popgun!”

  “Maybe so, if you can’t be patient.”

  “Oh all right. I’ll stop complaining. How do I aim this thing?”

  “First, you stop referring to it as a thing. It’s a gun. It kills. You have to respect it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. How do I aim the rifle? Your very pretty and clean-as-a-whistle Winchester ’73, which can kill people and, I suspect, has once or twice, along with one large, rabid mountain lion.”

  “It’s killed a few,” he said. “Fork over the rifle and kneel down.” He pointed to the ground next to the crate.

  Her heart jumped. “A few?”

  “Yeah,” he said, getting down on one knee next to where he’d pointed.

  “Men?” she asked. Her breath lightened, coming in fast little spurts.

  He lifted his head to her, eyes narrowing slightly. “Yeah, rustlers and a couple Indians.”

  She’d known it, of course. In her mind, at any rate, in a sort of disembodied intellectual way, but hearing it from his mouth, so matter-of-factly, that was different. Her father’s voice echoed in her ears. These are not the tame creatures you are accustomed to. No, Nicholas was not a tame creature. Although not as coldly brutal as his friend Rick Winchester’s temperament had proven to be in Texas, Nicholas’s was hardly benign. Under his composed, wry exterior hid a man as hard and wild as the country around them. The country from which he’d built a large and prosperous ranch.

  And still she wanted him, perhaps even more so. What was the matter with her that a man who discussed killing so casually enthralled her?

  “It’s the West, Miz Montgomery. Wasn’t much in the way of law ten years ago,” Nicholas said. Her eyes focused on him again. His expression had gentled, as if to ease her worries.

  “I expect not,” she said perusing the gun. Suddenly it seemed decidedly sinister. True, it had saved her life and had quite probably saved Nicholas’s several times as well. In that respect, it was a friend. If she were standing at the other end of it, however, she would scarcely view it as friendly.

  “Are you O.K.?” Nicholas asked. “You’re a mite
pale.”

  Her immediate reaction was to deny her trepidation; she despised admitting weakness. Moreover, politeness dictated “I’m fine” as the only appropriate answer to such an inquiry. But Nicholas’s eyes were so sweetly concerned, divine blue eyes rimmed with remarkably long lashes. She had yet to conceal her feelings from him. It made no sense to start now. “I suppose I didn’t wholly comprehend that this thing—the rifle—that it kills people.”

  He contemplated her for a spell before shrugging. “Well I reckon it seems that way, but the fact is, ma’am, it’s not the rifle that kills people. It’s whoever’s shootin’ it that does the killin’. Try thinking of it as a tool. A knife or a pitchfork. Those things can kill people, too, but they gen’rally have other purposes.”

  “But the rifle doesn’t have other purposes. Its purpose is to kill.”

  “Not always. Sometimes it’s to scare, sometimes to signal. Mostly though, it’s for huntin’.”

  “Hunting is still killing.”

  “You can think of it that way, or you can think of it as putting food on the table. Every time you eat meat, somebody’s killed it.”

  “And yet you’ve spent all this time drilling into me the fact that the gun can kill people.”

  “To make sure you’re cautious, that’s all. I expect you don’t remember when your parents first taught you to use a knife. Most likely they drilled into you how dangerous it can be, too.”

  Which meant they were back to her original idea—that Nicholas was dangerous, that in his hands the rifle was very dangerous, at least to someone who threatened his friends or family. She had no doubt that he’d protect them, protect her, to the death.

  She didn’t need protection, though, other than from her nightmares. Shooting a rifle could hardly help with that.

  And yet for all that, she felt cozily safe as she knelt next to Nicholas. Slightly shaky, true, for she’d never been friendly with someone who’d killed a person, other than as a soldier, but safe all the same. “All right,” she said. “I shall take your word for it. I must confess, I find arguing with you quite fatiguing.”

  He grinned. “That so? I find arguing with you entertainin’. O.K., now that we’ve squared that away, put your left arm under the barrel, here.” He guided her hand as her heart fluttered. Entertaining. Did he mean it? But who would ever enjoy arguing? “And your right on the trigger, while pulling it hard against the nook of your shoulder. Harder. The gun has a kick and if it’s not tight against your shoulder, it’ll hurt you.”

  She liked arguing, but everyone knew that she had a perverse nature.

  “A kick?” she asked.

  “Recoil. When you shoot, it jerks backward a mite.”

  She pulled the stock firmly against her shoulder.

  “Good enough. Now lean your face against the stock and position it so that you can see through both sights.”

  The wood was smooth and cool against her cheek. “I can see,” she said.

  “Great. Now while looking through the sights, shift the gun until you can see one of the cans I lined up on the bales.”

  She chose one that seemed exceptionally bright. “All right, I’ve got one.”

  “Here’s where you get to shoot. Take a couple of deep breaths. Steady yourself, steady the rifle, and then squeeze the trigger. Don’t yank it. Squeeze it in one smooth motion.”

  She breathed, and each breath brought with it Nicholas’s musky scent of leather and pine. It traveled through her lungs, through her veins and suddenly she had an exceedingly difficult time concentrating. He knelt so near to her that she could hear him breathing, could see the tiny mist each of his breaths sent up into the air. When he moved, the leather of his coat creaked.

  “Ma’am? You gonna pull the trigger or not?”

  “Which one?” Oh no, she hadn’t meant to say it!

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” she mumbled and pulled the trigger. “Bang,” she said.

  “You didn’t squeeze it.”

  She’d rather be squeezing him.

  Stop!

  She couldn’t help it. Her brain had jumped tracks and was so swiftly chugging down the new one that it required Herculean efforts to focus on the weapon again.

  “Give it another try,” Nicholas said. “Drop the gun long enough to cock it. Good. Now aim it, take three breaths and pull the trigger.”

  She did.

  “That was worse,” he said.

  “All right,” she said, drawing in another breath as she pointed the rifle toward the ground. “Perhaps you ought to demonstrate.”

  He hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure. Come ’round to my right,” he said taking the gun from her. He cocked it. “Nearer, so you can see.” He pulled the stock against his shoulder, closed one lovely eye, and sighted it. He took a breath, then let it out. She was so near him, it brushed against her cheek. His breath smelled sweet and minty. If she kissed him, would he taste of mint?

  Stop it. Concentrate! This is a dangerous weapon!

  And still every nerve in her body wanted to touch him, kiss him; Nicholas was a dangerous weapon as well.

  He drew another breath. On the final exhale, he pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped home with a click. She started.

  Lifting his eyebrows, he pointed the gun to the ground. “You’re a little skittish.”

  “Yes, well, I suspect that when I shoot it for real, I won’t be so skittish.”

  He didn’t look convinced, but he handed her the rifle. “We’ll give it a try.”

  She moved back to his left side as he opened his bag and withdrew a cardboard box. He pulled out six shiny brass bullets and handed them to her. Hands trembling, she carefully pushed them into the little hole on the side of the gun. She cocked the rifle and tried not to fix upon the noun version of the word, which a lady ought not to know, nor use, and certainly not contemplate while holding a loaded weapon.

  Oh, whom was she kidding? she admonished herself as she aimed the rifle. A lady would never hold a loaded weapon. She’d never been a lady; she’d never wanted to be one. She merely played the part out of necessity.

  But not with Nicholas, for she had a feeling that deep down inside he had as little use for ladies as she did, a common belief woven in colorful cords of silk, binding her heart to—

  “Wait,” he interrupted her thoughts. “Firmly against your shoulder.” He leaned forward to tuck the stock into the nook of her shoulder so that the edges bit through her clothing. “There, that’s how it should feel.”

  His hand rested on her back. She turned her mind away from the soft emotions threatening to overwhelm her and allowed her imagination to take control. It happily created pictures of his hand drifting from her shoulder downward—

  Not better! More matters she oughtn’t to contemplate while holding a loaded weapon.

  Oh but what she ought to do was concede defeat. Lay the gun aside and surrender to temptation. Kiss him hard and long until he yielded, then slide her hands from his neck down to the front of his coat and inside, hoping to coax an involuntary response from him, if nothing else.

  “Now, three deep breaths, inhale, slowly exhale, then squeeze the trigger in one slow, continuous motion.”

  For a moment, it sounded like he was giving her directions in bed. Did men give such directions? Nicholas must, she thought taking the first breath, when he was with the women in town. Wasn’t that why he paid them?

  She took another breath.

  To behave—sexually—in whatever manner he might wish.

  This was not better!

  She exhaled, and drew in another breath.

  “Too fast. Breathe slowly.”

  Her heart fluttered and her fingers trembled. She was having a difficult time breathing at all.

  She tried, though, and then pulled the trigger.

  The gun recoiled, her shoulder jerked back, pulling muscles in her back. A bang reverberated through the valley. A small cloud of smoke rose from the end of the gun.

&nb
sp; “Well,” he said, leaning back on his heels as he tilted his hat back on his head. “You shot it.”

  Her body shaking, she lowered the gun and scanned the bales. “Did I hit the can?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, his deep voice traced with amusement.

  “Oh,” she said turning to him, wrinkling her nose a little. “Then what did I hit?”

  “The hill.”

  “The hill? Not even the hay bale?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Not even close.”

  “But I did everything you said!” she protested.

  “You yanked the trigger.”

  “Oh I did not!” she argued, scanning the hay bales and cans. Contrary to what she knew definitely to be true, the row of cans appeared untouched. “Besides, what difference would it make if I yanked it or squeezed it? I think you’re lying to me.” The bales also looked remarkably undisturbed. But they wouldn’t look as though she’d shot them, would they?

  “When you jerk the trigger, the shot goes wild.”

  She goes wild. Her heart lurched and she sucked in her breath as a vision jumped in front of her eyes of his hand coasting over her naked breast, then her belly, toward another kind of trigger.

  Nicholas raised his eyebrows. “Problem?”

  The shot goes wild. He hadn’t said “she,” that was merely what her treacherous ears had heard. He was speaking perfectly clearly about something as impersonal and mundane as shooting a rifle.

  Except that shooting a rifle wasn’t mundane to her. And Nicholas seemed to eat, drink and breathe danger, which sent her pulses racing and jerked the breath from her lungs just as surely as she had jerked that trigger. How could she feel this way, and he remain wholly unmoved?

  Then for the first time she marked the tension in his muscles, the tightness of his face, even through his smile and the amusement gleaming in his eyes. Something else glittered there—hunger. Carnal hunger, for her. Her skin started tingling in anticipation. As she stared at him, the heat in his eyes melted the amusement. A muscle in his jaw jumped, as if he were fighting for self-control. “O.K., let’s give it another try. Cock the gun, put it against your shoulder, aim, and this time squeeze the trigger.”