She responded with a sleepy nod.
The swelling around his eyes had reduced since they’d high-tailed it out of Injun Creek just after sundown. The stabbing pain in his ribs remained, and blood still trickled down his arm.
But the ache her soft curves triggered much farther south might keep him from living to see sunrise.
He cleared his throat. “We need to rest the horse.”
She swiveled and studied what once had been his face. “And you.”
“Yeah. And me.” Sitting where she was, he hoped to God she meant he looked tired.
By the time he’d staked the sorrel beside a brook, the pain in his ribs had become a fire-breathing beast. Hugging his chest with one arm, he dragged his gun belt from the saddle horn, trudged beneath the shelter of an ancient pecan tree, and leaned his forehead into the trunk’s rough bark. Nobody would notice more scratches and scrapes.
“Mister Farrow.” A gentle tug lifted the holstered weapon dangling from his hand. “You need to sit.”
“If I do, I’ll never find my way back to my feet.”
“I’ll make sure you get up.”
She’d done a damn fine job of that already.
He turned to face her. A halo of golden hair, eyes as blue as the heavens, and a honeyed voice. Hypnotic. The impish smile on her lips said she was not unaware of her charm.
“Please sit down before you fall down.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He unlocked his knees and slid to the ground.
She settled beside him, bathing his face with a gaze that cooled every fevered, throbbing, swollen inch.
Above his shoulders, dammit.
He needed to set his mind on something else. Anything else. “Galveston’s about two days from Injun Creek, according to Hen—” Shit. Anything but that.
She devoted herself to covering a bare patch of earth with fallen leaves. “Henry will be fine. He stayed because that’s what he wanted to do.” Her words disappeared behind a sniffle. “If Roy were going to hurt him, he’d have done so long ago.”
Daniel stilled her restless hands with one of his. With the other, he lifted her chin. Gossamer wings could have been no more delicate than her skin.
Tears tracked down her cheek. “I thought I knew Roy.”
He wiped away the trail with the backs of his knuckles. “People aren’t always what they seem.”
“Like you?”
“Yeah. Like me.” Surely that jab wasn’t a pang of conscience.
She curled her fingers around the grubby digits he’d “forgotten” to disconnect from her cheek. She forgot to release his hand. “Mister Farrow—”
“Call me Daniel. I was born with that name. Folks have known me by a dozen misters, but I’ve always kept Daniel.”
The sun hadn’t yet risen, but when she showed him a smile, the sky glowed. Like a moth fluttering too close to a lantern, he eased away from the old pecan and leaned toward her. Every bone in his chest took offense…but he didn’t care.
He slid his hand to the back of her neck; wound his fingers through strands of gold. Montana blues locked his gaze as her tongue moistened parted lips…
…that tasted of honey.
What ribs? What bruises and scrapes? What gunshot wound? The sweetness in her kiss banished the reminders of a beating and a bullet.
When he could no longer breathe, he forced himself from the feast, still hungry.
Her sultry stare beckoned as she reached for the placket on what remained of his shirt.
He trapped her palm at the base of his throat. Dammit. Wrong place; too little time. “We need to go. A laudanum nap only lasts for so long.”
Good thing she’d promised to help him rise. Damn ribs kicked up a fuss the moment he moved.
But she didn’t, when he wrapped her in his arms as soon as they gained their feet. “When I was a kid, honey was about my favorite thing in the world. I still get a powerful craving from time to time.” Now, for instance. “That’s the trouble with honey. Once a man gets a taste, he can’t help wanting more.”
She rose onto her toes and gave him another taste of her lips. More time on that horse with her in his lap… Heaven and Hell in one package. “What’s in Galveston?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been there. What’s at Dumont?”
“My sister’s wedding. She’s marrying a friend of the family that owns the ranch.”
“I always wanted a sister.”
“I’ve got two. Want to borrow one?” He winked.
Honey coated even her laugh. “Thank you for your kind offer, but—”
Sudden realization bounced his heart off his hell-possessed ribs. Shit. “He’s got her letter.”
“Letter?”
“Daisy’s—to help me find the place. Halverson took it. If he thinks to read what she wrote…”
Chapter Ten