The Treasure Hunter's Lady Page 17

  “We’re looking for a magical jewel. That’s not possible either.”

  He had a point. “So the river split and brought us through a gateway. How do we get back?”

  Abel shook his head. “I don’t know yet. For now we should stick to our plan to find the Serpent’s lair. We're going to have to walk, try to find some shelter for tonight. Are you up to it?” His thumb caressed the scrape on her cheek. The tenderness in his voice made her long to crawl into his lap and cling to him.

  She’d traveled the world over and lived this long. Sitting beside the Missouri and worrying wasn’t going to solve any of their problems. This could be her greatest adventure yet. Why not make it at the side of the man she loved? “Of course. Let me get dressed.”

  For the first time he seemed to notice she was nearly naked. His warm gaze raked over her body. “You're beautiful, Romy.”

  She laughed at his absurd statement, worries forgotten as she looked into his eyes. “You're saying that because we're in the middle of nowhere and I'm the only woman for miles and miles.”

  “No, I mean it. I thought so from the second I spotted that burning bush of hair.”

  She smiled, leaning into him. “I thought you were a cad when you put your hands on me the first time. I don't know if I was angrier about that automobile or you.”

  He shrugged. “Doesn't matter. You forgave me. I can't be too mad at the driver. It's because of him that we're together. Damned lucky, if you ask me.”

  She laughed, certain he'd lost his mind. “What's lucky about being lost in the middle of nowhere?”

  “The company could be worse.”

  She rolled her eyes and bent to retrieve her clothes. Her things were still damp. The material dragged along her skin, warm from the sun, but uncomfortable. She noted, with some amusement, that Abel averted his gaze while she dressed. So her treasure hunter had decided to play the gentleman again. Somehow he always managed to surprise her. She gathered her hair into a loose bunch and dug in her pack for length of string to tie it back.

  “Let me help you,” he offered, taking the string from her.

  “Okay.” She shrugged and turned her back to him, still holding her hair.

  He looped the cord above the part she held and tied it. Then she felt his breath caress her neck and a second later, his lips. A shiver of pleasure ran down her spine. He placed his hands on her shoulders, kneading the tight muscles. At first she cringed at the pain, but as the knots melted, she moaned in relief.

  “How did you know?”

  “You moved like an old lady.”

  Abel ran his hands down her arms until he reached her waist. He pulled her into his embrace, drawing her against his chest and folded his hands over her stomach.

  “Abel?”

  “I thought we were finished. That we'd probably end up like the boat. I'm glad you're safe.”

  “I'm glad you're safe too. I don't know what I would do if you . . . .” She trailed off for fear of giving away too many feelings; part of her longed to say she didn't want him to let go. Wanted to recreate the lovemaking she'd experienced on the Ursula Ann. The other part took a more rational approach to things. She forced her voice into a hearty tone. Why complicate things further? “We're both fine. That's the important part. By the looks of things, we'll be soaking wet soon if we don't get a move on.”

  Dark gray clouds had caught up with them again, rolling across the sky with the occasional flash of lightning. He let go of her and stepped away, expression neutral as he studied the sky. If he missed her touch as much as she missed his, it didn't show.

  “We'll follow the river as best as we can. Keep your eyes open for a cave or an overhang. Anything will do.”

  “All right.” Romy tried not to let their situation remind her of the Amazon. Her visitor, whether he was a dream creature or real, made her think of the people who tried to take her from Papa. Abel had brushed it off as though natives were the least of their troubles. For all she knew, they were. The Eastern papers were full of news about skirmishes between the natives and the military, but what was a tribe of warriors compared to being poisoned by the Horned Serpent?

  He heaved the pack on his back.

  Romy’s brow furrowed. “Let me carry that.”

  However well he seemed, if the story he told was true, he was still dying. All he needed was an added burden. “No. We’ll take turns.”

  “I’m not a child, I don’t need to be coddled.”

  A wicked light came into his eyes. She blushed under his scrutinizing gaze.

  “You’re not a child, but you are the most puzzling woman I've ever come across. Anyone else would have my hide for sending them down a waterfall.”

  He smiled and her pulse quickened. Thunder sounded in the distance and she looked away from Abel. She couldn't have him and damned if she was going to pine away for him. Without answering, she picked her way along the bank, stepping over roots stemming from scrubby trees and pushing through long grass to forge a path.

  Looking for shelter became a second priority as she fought to keep her balance on the uneven ground. Mud sucked at her boots, making squelching noises as she led the way.

  “What makes you think we'll find anything out here?” She frowned at the caked mess on her soles.

  “Just a feeling. Something's out here. Something that's not ordinary.” He looked around as though he expected Uktena to materialize. “As crazy as it sounds, the fang wants to go home. It's in my pocket and I can still feel it wanting. I can't explain it any other way.”

  “And suppose your fang leads us straight into the Serpent's mouth. Then what? I've read the legends about the warrior who saw the snake and their families died. I don't have any desire to inadvertently kill my father or any long-lost relatives.” She didn't like the idea of meeting the Serpent at all.

  “No one is going to die, either by accident or on purpose.” He pushed ahead of her, leaving her to stare at the back of his head.

  Romy stopped on top of the tree to catch her breath and try to clean her boots off. “So how do you plan to kill it?”

  He turned to face her and the look in his eyes was uncertain. “I haven't figured that out yet.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “We're probably lucky it didn't rise up from the deep and swallow us on that dreadful boat.”

  “We had a way to kill it then.”

  She shivered. “Uktena is probably watching us right now. Or has some little snaky minion slithering after us.”

  The sky opened up, sending down stinging drops of rain. Romy yelped as the cold droplets hit her face.

  “Come on,” Abel picked up the pace. He skittered along the bank as it rose above the river.

  A silver tongue of lightning licked at a tree on top of a hill. She swallowed a cry. The smell of burnt wood and singed earth overpowered the coppery scent. Abel slowed down and took her hand, twining his fingers through hers.

  He pulled her along, stepping around an outcrop of rocks, close to the edge of the bank, sloping a good twenty feet above the river. Debris swirled in the muddy brown water.

  “There.” He nodded to a dark gap in the ground. “We can stop there for the night.”

  Romy tried to put her feet where Abel did. Rivulets of rain ran down her face, soaking her hair and clothes yet again, blurring her vision. She stepped down on a chunk of limestone, right where he stepped seconds before. It rolled under her foot, turning her ankle as it went, then came loose from the mud. She hit her knees and lost her grip on his hand.

  “Abel!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Romy clawed at the grass and ground as she slid down the embankment. And then her feet struck solid rock. She sank her fingers into the soft earth and held on.

  Abel, descending on his rear at a much slower speed than she had, stopped several feet above her. His face was drawn with worry.

  “Are you all right?”

  Sick fear churned in her stomach. She heard the river below her and sent silent tha
nks toward the heavens for sparing her another dunk in the water. Shaken, palms and knees stinging, she looked up at him and nodded. “I think so—yes. But could pull me up?”

  She felt like an amateur, a nuisance who'd never been in the wilderness before.

  “Stay still. Not to alarm you, but that shelf you're on isn't very wide.”

  She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut, laying her face against the wet ground.

  “Romy?” A note of panic sounded in his voice.

  Forcing a laugh, she looked up at him again. “One of these days you're going to tire of rescuing me.”

  He muttered something that sounded like “not likely”, but he flashed a wan smile. “We'll worry about it when the time comes. For now, stay put.”

  “I don't think I like Dakota very much.”

  “Me either. Let’s hope it’s a short stay.”

  As the sky darkened, he unbound a coil of rope, inching it toward her. Her fingers, reluctant to turn loose of the precarious hold she had, trembled before grasping the slick line.

  “Wrap it around your waist and tie it tight. I'll pull you up. I won't let you fall. You can trust me.”

  The weight of his words sank in. Freezing and terrified, when she looked into his eyes, she knew he meant everything he said. “I know. I trust you.”

  She fumbled with the rope, wrapping it around her waist twice before tying the tightest knot she knew. This was one adventure that wasn't going anything like she planned.

  “I'm ready when you are.”

  “All right. Coming up,” Abel said. He leaned back, heels braced in the land, hauling on the rope. His face turned red with effort, but her feet lifted from the ledge and she used brush and jutting rocks to help her along the way. No easy feat with the mud and rain working against them.

  She climbed the last few inches to him and sat at his side. “I'm so sorry. I'm a burden to you, Abel.”

  He frowned and tried to hide that he was breathing hard by taking her hands and turning them palms up. Blood mingled with mud and rainwater. He squinted through the rain, up the hill before letting his eyes roam over her dirty clothes.

  “You're a mess. Let's get to that cave and see if we can't clean you up.”

  “It doesn't hurt much,” she lied.

  “Maybe not, but it looks like hell.”

  Romy took her hand back and untied the rope at her waist, coiling it with care, avoiding his eyes. He waited, crouched against the sodden ground until she finished before returning it to the pack. She hugged herself as the cold seeped into her body. Abel circled his fingers around one of her wrists, pulling her up as he rose to his feet. Her knees were more than a little shaky as she followed him, but he didn't let go. Didn't act like he had any intention of letting go of her again. A sense of safety surrounded her.

  The pace he set left her breathless and it seemed like a hundred miles until they set foot in the narrow cave. Romy leaned against the dry stone wall, grateful to be alive. She let her eyes slide shut and choked down a bout of giddy laughter. All the aches and pains just meant she'd survived another day.

  Abel dropped the pack and seconds later something hit the cave floor with a wet plop. Shivering with cold, he’d stripped his shirt off and started working on his pants. He met her gaze and held it while the sky melted from angry gray to light-consuming black. Someone might have snuffed a candle out. She heard his trousers land near his shirt.

  Lightning sparked and for a brief instant, she saw him standing across from her, perfectly nude. The next flash revealed him inches from her and then she felt his hands at her shirt collar.

  “You're soaked again and freezing probably.” The material around her shoulders peeled away until her undershirt was exposed. A scent like rain, earth and fresh cut grass filled her nose. His breath blew against her neck. She let him lift the undershirt and dropped her hands to the top of her trousers. They rolled down her legs, bunching at the tops of her boots. A shiver of anticipation washed through her. Her breasts brushed his chest and her stomach pressed against his. Warmth coursed through her veins.

  “Just a minute.” His voice was gruff. “Slip your boots off. I'll have to see if a lantern survived.”

  He stepped away. She pressed her toe to the back of one boot before kicking the soggy leather aside and did the same with the other before stepping out of her trousers. Totally naked, she wrapped her arms around herself, happy that the wind whistling past the cave opening hadn't found its way in.

  Abel struck a match, pulled a lamp from the pack and set it on the ground. The match flickered. Shadows danced against his smooth muscles, throwing his face into sharp relief. He primed the lantern and set the match to the wick. It sputtered, but caught, filling the small space with bright light. She squeezed her eyes shut trying to pretend Abel's body wasn't burned into her memory now.

  “Light. Now that is practically a miracle.” His appreciative words about something so simple tore at her heart.

  “Damn, Romy. Look at your legs.”

  She followed his gaze down and winced at the purple bruises marring her knees.

  “They look worse than they feel,” she assured him. Was he looking at her knees or all of her? Heat flooded her body.

  “You can stop pretending we haven't seen each other naked before,” he said drily. “It'll save a lot of fuss in the end.”

  She nodded and looked back at her legs. “There’s some liniment in my pack. If you’ll give it to me, I’ll rub it on and save myself some soreness tomorrow.”

  “Sit down while I sort through this stuff. No sense pretending we’re at our first cotillion where the boys and girls won’t even cross the room to talk to each other.”

  She hunched down against the rough wall, letting her wet hair fall over her shoulders as she drew her knees up to her chest. She snuck a look at him from beneath her lashes. It didn't seem possible than any other man in the world could be as well-made as Abel. Never in all the years she'd traveled with her father's men had any of them ever wandered around in front of her in the nude.

  Her hands curled into balls. She'd touched him, explored his body and made love with him. She wanted to do it again.

  Abel clutched a tin and folded himself on the ground in front of her. She kept her eyes trained on the narrow margin of floor between them. Every fiber in her wanted to soak in the sight of his golden skin.

  “I'm not going to bite you,” he promised.

  “I never want to move again. I'll just sit in this cave for the rest of my natural life,” she mumbled, staring hard at the tops of her knees.

  “If this doesn't work, I'll let you,” he promised.

  He pried the lid off a tin. The pungent smell wafting from it burned her nose and caused her eyes to water. “I think it’s meant for horses, but it’s always worked before.”

  One side of his mouth lifted in amusement. “You’re about the farthest thing I ever saw from a horse, but it can't hurt. If you start to neigh, then we’ll worry.”

  His fingers moved in gentle circles, massaging the creamy concoction over her bruises and extended down her calves, stopping at the tops of her feet. The aches and pains slowly disappeared under his care. She didn't resist when he straightened one leg and then the other, allowing his hands to sweep over her thighs in tight circles. All lingering traces of cold vanished like he'd lit her on fire.

  “Better?” he asked, voice husky.

  Unable to speak, she nodded. Romy pulled his face toward hers and kissed him, letting her fingers slide though the hair at his neck. For the moment, they were alone, Adam and Eve in a strange, new world. The Serpent cast a shadow over their lives, but it was the farthest thing from her mind. She only cared about Abel's skin against her own.

  Bruises and scrapes dotted his chest and arms. In her own misery, she hadn't considered how banged up he was. She ran her fingertips over a bruise on his shoulder then pressed her lips to it. One by one, she moved from shoulder to bicep, past the tattoo, to a large blue spot on hi
s rib cage. Her palms paved the way across his torso to his flat stomach.

  Abel groaned, but she knew it wasn't because he ached—at least not from any wound. Hunger burned in his amber eyes, half-hidden behind soot-black eyelashes. The same kind of expression lions wore while watching their prides—lazy and content. Her heartbeat quickened when she lowered her gaze to his arousal. Romy trailed her fingers through the gilded hair and touched the velvety hardness. She closed her hand around it with a gentle squeeze. He made a noise deep in his throat when she stroked him. A dewy drop glistened on the head of his shaft and her womb tightened as she imagined him sliding between her legs.

  She edged away from him to stretch out, ignoring the bite of gritty cave floor against her back and issued a smile as her invitation to him. In the blaze of lantern light, he looked like an ancient god come to life, his eyes aglow as he drank her in.

  He laid next to her on his side, splaying one hand against her stomach, propping himself up on the other elbow. He lowered his face to hers, kissed her gently at first, his lips soft against her mouth. She tasted the salt of his skin and lifted his hand to cup her breast. Her nipple hardened as the pad of his thumb traced a lazy path around her dusky areola. Her tongue ran the length of his lower lip then sought the warmth of his mouth. He eagerly accepted it, stroked it with his own.

  Romy moaned her need. His hand trailed lower, combed through the curls at the apex of her thighs. She parted her legs, squirming when his fingers dipped into her slick sex, thrusting gently before withdrawing them only to repeat the motion again and again. Abel kissed her jawline, along her neck and nipped at her collarbone. She arched her hips, urging him deeper as the need mounted in her center like a bright, hot sun.

  She cried out as the sun burst, wave upon wave of shuddering pleasure flowed over her, delicious and satisfying. Abel rose above her, his rod sliding inside her, still slow as though they had all the time in the world. Teasing her with the tip and receding in a way that made her more eager to have the entire length of him.

  On his next entrance, she locked her legs around him and he laughed softly, like he was amused by her impatience to feel the tingling spark again. His hand warmed her cheek, thumb caressing from her nose to her ear.