"What I'm after is a good night's sleep."

To her utter amazement, she felt him refasten the button he had just slipped from its loop. She swung a startled gaze to his.

"I'm just makin' a point, Boston," he added, his smile no longer seeming quite so feral. As he refastened her other button, he bent his head and planted a light kiss on the tip of her nose. "My point bein' that there ain't no sense in you layin' awake all night, scared to death, with your fingernails dug into my hand. If I wanted to rape you, I wouldn't bother with bein' sneaky about it. Hell, it ain't like you can holler to the neighbors for help, now is it?"

Laura gaped at him.

He drew back to regard her, his eyes glinting with mischief. "You want me to go through it all again?"

"No. I get your point. I think."

He pressed his loosely curled knuckles under her chin to lift her face slightly. "You think?"

"I understand," she amended quickly. "You could force yourself on me if you wanted, but you don't."

"Not quite," he said with weary resignation.

One of them was crazy, and she didn't believe it was she. "Then what is the point?"

"I could, and I want to, but I won't. That's the point." Having made that proclamation, he released her captured wrists and drew his leg off of hers. "I ain't tried to rape me a woman in so damned long, I think I've forgot how, anyway. And just as well, to my way of thinkin'. A lot of effort and not much pleasure, if I recollect it right."

As he resettled himself beside her, Laura lay there in frozen silence. With terrifying ease, he had just pinned her beneath him, unfastened her jacket, and kissed the end of her nose, all to prove he could force himself on her any time he wished? She wanted to slug him. No, she wanted to kill him. But first she thought she might be violently sick.

"You reprobate!"

"What happened to cad?"

"A cad doesn't describe" Laura ground her teeth, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how badly he had frightened her. "You're a degenerate! A scoundrel of the worst sort! I hope you enjoyed bullying a helpless woman."

"Not a bit."

Even through her anger, she heard the sincerity in his voice.

"I tried tellin' you I wouldn't hurt you. But you got your mind made up about what kind of man I am, and you didn't believe me."

Laura couldn't deny the truth of that. She hadn't believed him. "And I do now?"

"Yep. Leastways you will once you calm down and think about it."

His hand curled back over her ribs, the sturdy grasp of his long fingers warm, his leathery palm heavy. She instinctively clasped his wrist, but her grip was less frenzied now, and terror no longer closed off her breath. Incredulously she realized that his barbaric tactics had worked. Now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, she knew just how easily he could have his way with her. The fact that he was making no move to do so could only mean he had no such intention.

As her heartbeat slowly returned to normal and her breathing grew less labored, Laura went back over all that he had said, and one comment loomed foremost in her mind.

"Then you did rape women when you were with the Cheyenne?"

"Tried," he corrected. "There's a mountain of difference atwixt doin' and tryin', though if you'd asked me at the time, I ain't sure I could've told you what it was."

"Tried?" Laura circled that. She couldn't imagine Deke Sheridan coming out the loser in a physical contest with a female. "Can you elaborate on that, Mr. Sheridan?"

"Elaborate?"

"Explain."

"Nope."

"'Nope'? And whyever not?"

"'Cause I don't like talkin' about it, for one. It's a long story, for two. And for three, you gotta get some sleep. If you don't, you're gonna take sick, and if you take sick, you won't he no use to that boy of yours once we find him." He traced another circle with his thumb, but now the caress that burned through the cloth of her dress felt curiously soothing instead of threatening. "Just trust me on it, Boston. I ain't a man to" He broke off and fell quiet for a moment. "That hand of mine ain't goin' nowhere. If that's what I had in mind, it'd be a done deed."

She closed her eyes on that. "You make me feel like a sausage wrapped in a biscuit."

"Well, leastways you know I ain't fixin' to take a bite."

Surprisingly, Laura believed he truly meant that. Silence settled over them again. A few feet away, she could hear Chief's raspy breathing. The wind whispered in the pine boughs above them and blew wispy clouds across the moon. She gazed at the stars that hung over the craggy peaks of the Rockies. So long a time seemed to pass, and Deke lay so still, that she finally decided he must he asleep. Mustering all her courage, she forced her grip on his wrist to relax.

"There's a smart girl," he murmured near her ear. "And ain't it just amazin' how that hand stays put with no help from you?"

The teasing note in his voice was unmistakable, and Laura grinned in spite of herself. "You are an absolutely despicable wretch."

"If you're tryin' to insult me, Boston, stick to English. All them fancy names you keep comin' up with is wasted on me."

Laura was too drowsy to think of other words, and she was no longer absolutely certain the description even fit. When she compared the way Deke had touched her to the way other men had, she noted two marked dissimilarities, one being that Deke was by far the strongest, the other that he had been far gentler. Not even his grip on her wrists had hurt, and never once had he punished her with his greater weight.

Laura closed her eyes again, this time because she felt so indescribably weary. As cold as the ground beneath her was, at least she was toasty warm where his body pressed against her. The radiant heat of him soothed the relentless ache across her lower back. She wished the same were true of her right breast. The velvet of her jacket was damp, and the cold of the earth had turned the cloth icy. Relinquishing her hold on Deke's wrist, she slipped her cupped hand around herself to ward off the chill. Unfortunately, her hand was nearly as cold and offered little protection.

Later, perhaps, she might roll over and warm her front against him, she premised herself. After he fell asleep, of course.

Somewhere nearby in the darkness, a limb snapped. Laura registered the sound, but felt no apprehension. For an animal to harm her, it would have to go through Deke Sheridan to reach her, and that realization made her feel inexplicably safe.

Her thoughts drifted to her baby, and she once again wondered where he was, if he had been fed, if he was warm. She could almost feel the silken cap of his hair against her fingers, almost smell the sweet baby scent of his skin, almost see the dimple that flashed in his cheek when he drew up his little mouth to suckle. Tears burned in the back of her throat. She fell asleep praying that God would keep him safe until she found him.

Resting his head beside Laura's on the rolled wool blanket, Deke found his nose tantalizingly close to her hair. He inched closer. No perfume or toilet water. Just a clean woman scent. He couldn't remember the last time he had held a decent female in his armsmaybe because he didn't really want to remember.

He could feel the underside of her right breast with his fingertips. Under the pad of his thumb, he could also feel the light, fluttery rhythm of her heart. Unlike a sturdy Cheyenne woman, she felt small and fragile. Pinning her beneath him had taken so little effort, it had surprised even him.

The protective feeling he had felt that morning welled within him again. This time he couldn't shove it away. A little gal like Laura Cheney needed looking after, and he was the only man around to apply for the job.

A tired smile touched his mouth. A reprobate? He had flat come up in the world since meeting her.

Left to his own devices, Deke relaxed his hand on her midriff, resisting the urge to follow the delicate ladder of her ribs up to softer places. It wasn't easy. He'd been on the trail for weeks and hadn't eased himself on a woman in all that time. He had healthy appetites, and abstinence wore on him. Even if that hadn't been the case, though, he would have been tempted by Laura Cheney, in part because she was such a pretty little thing, but mostly because he admired her pluck, whether he wanted to or not.

A decided lack of enthusiasm? Another grin settled on his mouth. She couldn't even say no without tonguing the subject to death.

As she drifted more deeply into sleep, he felt the change that came over her body. She lost her inhibitions and leaned more heavily against him. Then her breathing altered, the pace becoming slow and measured. Next, she wriggled her bottom more snugly into the cradle of his thighs to seek his warmth.

For Deke, the contact was sweet torture. He hugged his arm more closely around her, then lay perfectly still and forced his mind to other things. His cattle. The problems he'd been having with rustlers. The profit he had made on the last drive to Denver. Soon his eyelids grew heavy. He curled his shoulders around hers and pressed his face against her sweet-smelling hair. Adrift in a hazy state somewhere between dreams and reality, Deke was only vaguely conscious of Laura's slender fingers grasping his wrist. Assuming that she felt threatened by his touch even in her sleep, he offered no resistance when she moved his hand. His palm settled on damp velvet. Very cold damp velvet. His fingers instinctively conformed to the feminine shape, and his thumb had already embarked on a foray to trace its crest when awareness slammed into his brain.

His eyes shot open. A raspy intake of breath that might have become a snore caught crosswise in his throat. In a purely involuntary reaction, the muscles in his arm jerked. For a moment he lay there, incredulous and perilously close to laughter. If she woke up, she would never believe she had started this.

Not thrilled at the thought of what her reaction might be, he had every intention of moving his hand, but when he began to draw back, she hugged his forearm, shivered, and twisted slightly at the waist to settle her breast more comfortably in his palm. When she grew still once more, the backs of his knuckles were trapped between her and the blanket, and he felt the relentless chill that crept up from the earth.

Deke relaxed and let his hand remain where she had placed it. Soon the heat from his flesh warmed the softness it covered. A handful of pure trouble, that was what he had, and he'd damned well better remember it. There was something about her that was working its way under his skin like a goddamned chigger.

With a little luck, maybe he'd find her baby tomorrow and could deliver her back to Denver the following day. He prayed that would be the case, not just for his sake, but because he didn't think he could bear having to tell her that the child might be, and most probably was, dead.

Three days, on the outside. That's how long he guessed a baby that age could survive without breast milk. Luck, he needed a nonstop run of good luck. So far, it seemed to him he'd had nothing but bad. There were twenty-four hours left of that three days, and within his mind as he drifted to sleep, he thought sure he could hear a clock ticking away the precious minutes.

When Laura next opened her eyes, the first feeble streaks of dawn bathed the little clearing with pinkish light. For a moment she stared at the pine needles before her nose, uncertain where she was. Then the moldy scent of the forest registered on her sleep-numbed senses, and she remembered the previous day.

As awareness returned to her, measure by measure, she identified the heat at her back as Deke Sheridan's broad chest. His heavy, muscular arm rested in the cradle above her hip, his roped forearm angled across her ribs. Tender with fullness, her right breast, which she had tried so desperately to keep him from touching last night, was cupped in his leathery palm, his long fingers curled warmly and possessively around her. She could tell by the limp weight of his touch that he was fast asleep.

Laura was shocked that he had dared to take such a liberty and that she had allowed it; her first instinct was to jerk away. She quickly stifled the urge. If he woke up, she had no idea what his reaction might be, and she didn't care to find out. With great care, she tried to ease his hand away, hoping to disengage herself, him none the wiser. Gingerly she captured his fingers. Then, inch by inch, she slid his palm down toward her midriff.

He murmured in his sleep and, with a flick of his wrist, freed his hand to return it with unerring accuracy to its former resting place. Laura's breath snagged in her throat when his thumb brushed across the peak of her nipple. Then his fingertips joined in the play, light and searching, as if he were slowly coming to awareness and trying to identify what he held in his hand.

She knew the exact instant he woke up. His breath caught midway up his throat, his body went stiff, and his arm turned steely in its strength around her. But most telling of all was the altered pressure of his fingertips, one moment a tentative searching, the next a well-practiced stroke of thumb and forefinger that sent a shock of sensation deep into her belly.

"Please don't," she whispered raggedly.

He jerked away and pushed up. Though she squeezed her eyes closed in humiliation, Laura could feel him staring down at her. Well aware that most men wouldn't let such an opportunity pass, she fully expected him to make a nasty comment of some sort that would probably embarrass her all the more. An insinuation that she had been enjoying his touch, no doubt.

Instead, she heard him rise to his feet, put his gun belt back on, and walk off. After a moment, she gathered the courage to crack open one eye and saw that he was down at the stream refilling their coffee can. En route back to camp, he gathered twigs and small limbs in his free hand.

"I'll have coffee ready in a few," he called in a sleepy voice as he kindled a morning fire. "I don't know about you, but I could use some."

Laura pushed to a sitting position. That was it? A comment about coffee? She waited for him to send her a lascivious look, but he didn't even glance in her direction. As he snapped the limbs he'd gathered into smaller, more manageable pieces, her gaze was drawn to his large hands. The power in his grip was undeniable. Yet all she had experienced at his touch last night was gentleness.

An odd tightness rose in Laura's throat, and she quickly turned away, rubbing one wrist and testing it for soreness. She didn't find a single place where the grip of his fingers had left a bruise.

Feeling even more ill than she had last night, Laura went to her saddlebags to get some fresh flux cloths before she went for her morning walk. To her dismay, her supply of rags, torn from the spare set of bloomers she had brought along, had diminished to one thin strip, not nearly enough for her needs. Sitting back on her heels, she contemplated her predicament. Because their journey thus far had afforded her little privacy, she had been burying the soiled rags instead of tucking them away somewhere so she could rinse them later for reuse. Now she wanted to kick herself.

"Somethin' wrong?"

Laura jumped at the question and turned startled eyes toward Deke. "Wrong?"

Those all-seeing eyes of his shifted to her open saddlebags. When he looked back at her, his expression was speculative. "You needin' somethin'?"

Laura moistened her lips. The only spare cloth she had left was the one blanket of Jonathan's that the comancheros had neglected to steal. She couldn't help but feel that the blanket was her only remaining link to her baby, and she couldn't bear to part with it. "You wouldn't happen to have any"she averted her face, praying he wouldn't guess why she was asking"spare rags, would you?"

She sensed rather than heard him move toward his own gear. In her peripheral vision, she saw him crouch and rifle quickly through his clothing. His hand reappeared holding a shirt.

"Actually, Mr. Sheridan, I wanted something I might rip up."

He walked toward her, holding out the garment. "It's old. Take it."

Laura couldn't bear to meet his gaze as she accepted his shirt. Just thinking of what she meant to use it for brought heat to her cheeks. "Thank you. When this is over, I shall buy you another."

With that, she pushed up and wheeled away. As she sought a private spot in the thick brush to tend her personal business, she couldn't help but wonder if he knew what she was about. The thought so humiliated her that she decided there was no way she would risk his seeing her rinse out the soiled rags at the creek. Perhaps his next choice of a campsite might provide her with more privacy along a stream. With shaking hands, she found a weak seam in his shirt and set to work, ripping the cloth into strips she might use. She neatly folded the extra swatches and hid them in her pockets so she might slip them into her saddlebags later.

The morning air was chilly, and Laura shivered as she unfastened her jacket and opened her bodice. The cool temperature turned out to be only the start of her troubles. Her breasts were tender to the touch, and at the end of the ordeal, she had managed to express very little milk. Convinced the long, jarring horseback ride the day before was responsible, she tore a length of muslin from the bottom flounce of her petticoat and fashioned a makeshift supporter for her bosom. At this rate, she would run out of underthings before this journey was over.

On the way back to camp, Laura felt oddly disoriented and dizzy. She stopped once to lean against a sapling. Pressing the inside of her wrist against her forehead, she checked herself for fever. As far as she could tell, she wasn't too warm.

Deke had breakfast on the fire when she returned. Laura set herself to the task of rolling up their bedding. As she bent to grab the last blanket, a stitch in her back made her gasp. Deke glanced up from turning the bacon. "You okay?"

Laura brushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes. "Fine," she lied. "I'm just not accustomed to all this riding and then sleeping on the ground."

As she carried their bedding over to where their saddlebags lay, Deke's worried gaze followed her. Her face was frighteningly pale, to his way of thinking, and he didn't like the stiff way she walked. He had a gut feeling all wasn't well.

He smiled slightly at the frown that pleated her forehead when she opened her saddlebags and saw the collection of women's sage he had gathered. She lifted one of the absorbent leaves to examine it, her face a study of perplexity. Fully prepared for her to glance his way, Deke averted his face in the nick of time. He was quickly learning that she was a funny little thing and bashful as hell about bodily functions, especially her own. With luck, she would realize what the leaves could be used for and save him having to explain it to her.

"Can you take over watching the bacon?" he asked.

She strapped her saddlebags closed and walked unsteadily toward the fire. Looking down at her pinched face, Deke once again felt cause for concern. Her color had turned unnaturally bright along her cheeks, from embarrassment, no doubt, which told him she had indeed guessed what the sage was for. But despite the high color on her cheeks, the rest of her face was chalk white. A feverish sparkle glazed her usually liquid eyes, making them look more like amber glass this morning than pools of whiskey.

As she assumed the role of cook, Deke ordered Chief to stay with Laura, collected his rifle, and took off into the brush, careful to take a different direction than she had until he was safely out of her sight. Then he cut back to find her tracks, which he followed unerringly to a tiny clearing. A quick glance around revealed nothing. Then he spied a patch of disturbed dirt. With the toe of his moccasin, he unearthed the evidence she had so carefully buried. His stomach dropped when he saw the crimson-soaked rags.

"Son of a bitch!"

He clenched his teeth against a wave of anger, which was quickly followed by concern. The crazy little fool. What was she trying to do, kill herself?

Chapter 9.

*Still feeling a bit dizzy, Laura set herself to the task of finishing breakfast, glad for an opportunity, however small, to help with camp chores. As she stepped around the fire, Chief growled, and she threw him a glare.

"After feeding you all my dinner last night, and you're guarding that stinking bone from me?" She clucked her tongue. "Shame on you."

Jowls frothy with slobber, the dog snarled again as Laura moved around him. She shook her head and decided to ignore him. Dumb animal, anyway. As if she would take that horrid deer leg away from him. She bent over to reposition the pan of bacon, then turned the thick slabs of meat. As she started to straighten, Chief capped his earlier growls with a chest-deep rumble that raised the hair on her neck. She wasn't anyplace close to his bone now, she realized.

The oddest sensation crawled up Laura's back, a feeling that eyes were pinned on her. Her heart skipped a beat as she slowly turned around. At her movement, Chief surged up from his resting place.

Not ten feet away stood three Mexicans, though to tag them ethnically as Mexican was, in Laura's opinion, an insult to their nationality. She doubted these three deserved the honor of comparison. Their stench drifted to her, so strong it nearly took her breath.

"Senora," one said with a polite tip of his filthy hat. His yellow, decayed teeth flashed in a grin that creased his swarthy face. "We smelled your coffee. We were hoping that maybe you could find it in your heart to share a leetle?"