The fire popped, making her start. What was she doing here? She’d had a single purpose in coming out to the desert, but the whole situation seemed suddenly surreal, as if she’d been transported back in time. She almost wanted to laugh.
She shivered and hugged herself tighter. She could see her breath now. Maybe it was time to scrounge for that blanket. Keith had left a flashlight beside his rifle. She took it with her and scanned the ground as she walked, just in case he was wrong about the snakes. The horses stirred and nickered at her approach, suddenly restless…or were they nervous?
“What’s wrong, Sadie?” she asked the mare, whose ears were flicking in all directions. Their sense of hearing was acute, functioning much like radar. She shined the light into the darkness. Was something out there? She could see nothing. Her skin prickled.
She tried to shrug off her feeling of unease as a case of the heebie-jeebies, just like she always got after watching a horror movie. Unfortunately, that last thought only reminded her of The Hills Have Eyes, a horror flick set in the desert that had given her nightmares for months.
Perhaps it was just the coyotes’ cries that had the horses agitated? She found the blanket and clutched it around her shoulders with her free hand. She shivered again, but this time as much from nerves as cold. When she returned to the fire, Keith was sitting up, scowling at her.
“I told you not to wander off.”
“I didn’t wander. I only went to fetch a blanket and check on the horses. They seem jumpy.”
“So do you,” he observed.
“Maybe I am, a little. I think the coyotes spooked me. I’m not used to all this.” She added a dry laugh. “The closest I’ve come to experiencing wildlife in the past four years was a visit to Venice Beach.”
“Coyotes are harmless enough,” he said. “They prey on mice and rabbits and rarely bother humans.” He rose and shouldered his rifle, reminding her all too much of Daniel Day Lewis’s Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans, her favorite epic romance. In that moment it was far too easy to cast herself as Cora Munro. She shook off the ludicrous thought.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To check on the horses.”
“But it’s not your turn yet,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m awake.”
She eyed the bedroll covetously, wondering if it would still be warm from his body.
“Go ahead,” he urged with a tilt of his head.
“But it’s technically still my watch,” she replied.
His brows furrowed. “Are you always so stubborn?”
“Not always,” she said.
“Then you just like to argue with me.”
“That’s not true!” she argued.
Their eyes met. He cocked a brow.
Caught in the act, she couldn’t suppress a chuckle.
He walked off, shaking his head and mumbling something she couldn’t understand.
*
Miranda was right about the horses. They were jumpy as hell, but after scouting the area twice, Keith found nothing. Damning the moonless night, he returned to the fire, laying the rifle within close reach. True to her stubborn nature, Miranda hadn’t taken his place but sat before the fire, cocooned in the blanket. So be it. Let the little fool freeze.
He sank back into his bedroll, turning onto his side to better see into the darkness. He watched her with a growing mix of fascination and frustration. Tall, pale, and slender, Miranda Sutton was nothing like the women he normally went for, but her earthy innocence called out to his carnal nature. His brows contracted. “What are you afraid of? Me or yourself?”
“Neither,” she snapped. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
He made a scoffing sound. “Liar. You’d rather freeze your ass off than share this bed with me. You make no sense, Miranda. I want you, and I believe you want me too. There’s no shame in a man and woman pleasuring each other. Making love is one of the most genuine acts of human nature.”
“You have a silver tongue, Keith, but that’s not what it would be. Making love is what you do with someone you have feelings for. Or at the least with someone you like and respect. Anything else is just a fuck. I’m not your next fuck.”
“Did you know that there are no vulgar words pertaining to sex in any of the native tongues?”
“Is that true?” she asked.
“Yes. We don’t defile the act with dirty words. In fact, we have no swearwords at all.”
“Yet you think it’s perfectly fine to randomly hop from partner to partner and bed to bed?”
“I didn’t say we accept promiscuity. We don’t. We call those kinds of people tepee creepers.”
“Tepee creepers?” She laughed. “Really?”
“Yes. Just because we view sex differently doesn’t imply that it’s meaningless. We believe just the opposite: that the joining of two bodies forges a deeper connection between their souls. There are no walls in the moment of release, Miranda.” He didn’t add that his walls always came back up following the afterglow.
“You really believe that?” she scoffed.