“Well, it’s not exactly what could be called a gentle spring rain.”
Jake grinned. “Agreed.” He picked up the cheroot and tried to light it with a match from his shirt pocket, but the match had no spark. “Damn. My matches got wet.”
“Here. I have some.” Miranda moved near him to open the precious trunk that seemed to carry whatever they needed. Jake began unbuttoning his shirt while she searched for the matches. He wondered at how a woman could look so pretty after riding day after day in a wagon across the hot plains, unable to always bathe the way she would like, or do her hair or wear any color on her lips. He had seen plenty of painted women, shared the bed of many, but this small woman with no makeup and her hair brushed back into a plain tail at the neck, dressed in a light blue calico dress and worn high-button shoes, was the most beautiful he had ever set eyes on.
He got his shirt off and Miranda turned with the matches. She lit one and he leaned forward. She held it for him, and as he drew on the cheroot he met her eyes, eyes that told him things he did not want to hear aloud. God, he wanted her, and that was the hell of it. No, the real hell was knowing by her eyes that she wanted him too. If he were an ordinary man who led an ordinary life, he would pursue that want, and he would know how to love a woman like Miranda Hayes.
He decided he had to find a way to make her stop looking at him the way he had caught her looking at him earlier. There was one thing he could do. It just might make her find him revolting, but then that was probably best. It would be easier if she would look at him with horror or animosity than with that look of loneliness and longing.
“I need a dry shirt,” he told her. “My gear is behind you.”
Miranda closed the trunk and turned to his saddlebags, taking out a dark blue shirt. “It needs to be pressed,” she told him, handing it out.
Jake laughed lightly. “I don’t think anybody out here gives a damn.”
Miranda watched him pull on the shirt and begin buttoning it. She had seen that broad chest and those muscled arms before, when she had nursed him. Now seeing him bare-chested gave her a different feeling, stirred in her a terrible lust that almost startled her. She didn’t just love Jake Harkner, this outlaw to whom no woman of her morals and values should give a second thought; she also wanted him…physically. She moved into her own corner and picked up another one of his shirts, one that needed mending that she had not been able to finish the night before. “I might as well get this shirt done,” she said, jumping slightly again when thunder cracked overhead. “No sense just sitting here wasting time.”
Jake put his head back again, closing his eyes and listening to the storm, remembering another storm, one that hit on a night he would never forget. Should he tell her? He knew she was wondering, and what better way to make her hate him than to tell her the truth? The storm only brought it all back more vividly anyway. Thunder clapped again, and he could hear the gun going off at the same time. He could see the look of astonishment on his father’s face.
He waited a moment longer, another crash of thunder making him wince and put a hand to his forehead.
“Jake? What’s wrong?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Where’s the whiskey I bought back at that fort?” He saw her hesitate, knew what she was thinking. Giving whiskey to an ailing man was one thing, but it was something completely different when given to a perfectly healthy man with a notorious reputation. “Don’t worry. I don’t react to whiskey like my pa used to,” he told her, “although he didn’t need alcohol to bring out the worst in him.”
Miranda watched him a moment longer, then nodded toward the pile of blankets. “You’re leaning against it—in the crate under those blankets.”
Jake turned to search, grinning to himself at the realization she must have put it out of sight in hopes he would forget he had it. He removed a flask from the crate and uncorked it, turning back around and taking a swallow. He let it burn its way down his throat and into his stomach. He seldom drank much, hated the memories of what whiskey did to his father, how mean it made him. Still, right now it gave him the added courage he needed to shock Miranda Hayes out of any feelings she might have for him. He did not need or want to talk about this, but if it would take the light out of Miranda Hayes’s eyes when she looked at him, it would be worth the telling.
He lowered the bottle, staring at it for a moment, taking another drag on the cheroot. “I killed him,” he told her.
Miranda frowned, taking her gaze from her sewing and meeting his eyes. “Killed whom?”