"Come on," he coaxed in a silky voice. "You got my word I won't go pressin' you for any of them intimacies you're so worried about. This'll be more restful for you." He patted the fur again. "Come on."

When she hesitated, his eyes, still dancing with mischief, settled on hers. "Remember the first night we slept together?"

To her recollection, it had been the first and the last. "Yes, I remember."

"And that little set-to we had?"

"When you behaved like a baboon?"

He nodded. "That there's the time."

"What about it?" she asked, beginning to feel even more nervous.

"Seems to me I made a point that night." The slashes at each corner of his mouth deepened as his mouth settled in another smile. "You recall that point?"

Laura doubted she would ever forget it. "Yes, quite clearly."

"I hate drivin' a point into the ground. Don't you?"

"Meaning I shall sit where you want me to sit, one way or another?" she asked in a voice gone quavery with anger.

"Nope. Meanin' that if I had it in mind to do any of the things you're thinkin' I might, I'd've done started."

Laura swallowed hard. The distance to where he wanted her to sit looked like a hundred miles to her at that moment. If she gave in, he would undoubtedly curl those powerfully roped arms around her. Those same arms could easily subdue her if he wished to touch her where she preferred he not.

Clearly prepared to wait her out; he extended one long leg and dangled a wrist over his upraised knee. Fixing her with that silvery gaze, which always seemed to read far more than she wanted to reveal, he studied her for an endlessly long moment.

"Honey, I know it ain't gonna come easy to you, learnin' to trust me," he said softly. "The way I see it, since it's bound to take a spell, the sooner you set to work on it, the sooner you'll get it licked."

As reluctant as Laura was to comply, she knew she didn't have much choice. There was no mistaking that determined glint in Deke Sheridan's eyes. If she didn't join him on her own steam, he would probably come fetch her.

As she closed the distance between them, Laura recalled Deke's warning not to agree to this marriage unless she was certain of her decision. He had likened it to wading into water over her head. He had been right. She felt as if she were slowly being sucked under as she lowered herself to the furs.

Deke kept his hands resting on his knees as Laura settled herself in front of him. He couldn't help but smile at the care she took to keep a few scant inches between the seam of his jeans and her tailbone, a distance he planned to close as soon as she got her little fanny parked.

When she finally stopped wiggling, he narrowed an eye at her spine. The girl was sitting so straight, she could damned near rule paper. Slowly, so as not to startle her, he slipped an arm around her waist. She jumped as if he had touched her with a hot brand. As he tightened his hold, he heard her breath catch. With a firm pull, he scooted her back on the blanket until her hips pressed against him.

"Go ahead and lean against me, honey."

She allowed her shoulder blades to touch his chest, then jerked erect again as if the touch of him seared her. He pressed his hand against her midriff to draw her closer and bent his head to touch his cheek against her hair. She was shaking, and he knew it wasn't from the cold. "Laura, honey, are you chilly?"

"No," she said faintly.

"What then?"

"I, um, I'm just feeling a little claustrophobic."

Jesus, that sounded fatal. Deke checked her forehead. She felt cool. "I bite on that bait. What the hell does claus" He broke off and leaned around to look at her. "I can't even start to tie my tongue around that one. What's it mean?"

"To feel closed in and breathless," she said shakily. "I feel as if I've been stuffed into an envelope and it's made entirely out of hands."

He gave a startled laugh. "Hands? I only got two."

"Yes, I know, but they're rather large."

He took measure of his palm and fingers where they curled over her ribs. He had to admit, there wasn't a lot of woman left for grabs. A suffocating tightness came into his throat. During her illness, she had spent a great deal of time lost in memories and talking out. He knew why closeness like this made her feel as if she couldn't breathe.

Keeping his hands anchored to her ribs, Deke extended his thumbs and wiggled them. "Grab on, darlin'," he whispered huskily.

She glanced down. "Pardon?"

"Grab on to 'em," he repeated. "It's one of the best holds a woman can get on a man. You got it on me that first night, remember? Had my circulation damned near cut off."

She gave a weak laugh. "As if it would do any good."

"As soon as you get some strength back, I'll teach you how to lay a man out if he tries to lay a hand on you."

"You could teach me that?"

Deke chuckled at her dubious expression. "Honey, I could train you up so mean, even I'd be scared of you. And I will. That's a promise. But for tonight"he wiggled his thumbs at her again"you gotta settle for cuttin' off my blood flow."

With a hesitance that made his heart catch, she curled her fingers over his thumbs and made tight fists. His entire thumbnail, not to mention the front edge of his knuckle, extended beyond the breadth of her right hand. Seeing that drove home to Deke just how great a physical advantage he had, and how frightened she must feel.

Hunching his shoulders around her, he pressed his jaw against her ear, acutely aware of the silken tendrils of her hair against his skin, so fine and wispy while his was coarse and heavy. He loved the smell of her, which bore traces of the soap he had used to bathe her, but was mainly just female sweetness, a clean, soft smell he couldn't quite name.

"You smell so good. I could spend the whole night just sniffin'."

He turned his lips against the curls at her temple. She was still trembling. Not for the first time, Deke wished Tristan Cheney were still alive so he could shoot the heartless bastard. But wishing didn't make something so.

The man was dead, and his legacy to Laura was two years of grief.

Silence, broken only by the snapping of the fire and Chief's snores, settled over them. A thoughtful silence, but not a peaceful one. Deke felt the tension in every line of Laura's body. If his thumbs had been chicken necks, she would have wrung them by now. He smiled against her hair.

"You know what?"

"What?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

"I think it's about time to take another walk. If we don't get it out of the way, you're liable to get droopy-eyed on me." He loosened his arms from around her and gave each of his thumbs a wiggle. "Can you turn me loose, or are we stuck this way?"

She giggled softly, which was compensation enough to Deke for thumbs that had gone to sleep. He moved his hands to his knees and let her scoot to freedom. As she turned to look at him, he detected a bewildered expression in her whiskey-colored eyes. Ah, he had her guessing, did he? At least she was no longer quite so certain she knew what to expect from him.

He sprang to his feet and offered her a hand up. She regarded his outstretched palm for several seconds before she finally crossed it with her slender fingers. Deke hauled her easily to her feet.

"Think you can walk by leaning on my arm, or should I pack you?" he asked.

"Oh, I, um..." She wiped her palms on her skirt as if trying to rid herself of his touch. "I think I can manage to walk just fine."

Deke curled a hand over her hip and got a firm grip on her inside elbow. She wasn't weaving as badly now as she had earlier, and he could feel a change in the amount of weight she leaned against him. She wasn't ready to run any footraces yet, but she was strong enough to hash out a couple of fine points about this marriage of theirs that he felt needed to be clarified.

Chapter 17.

*Laura made her reprieve in the bushes last as long as possible. First, she walked at a snail's pace to get there, far more slowly than she truly needed to, and asked Deke to stop more frequently than was actually necessary. Then, once he had delivered her onto the log she had visited earlier and she felt shielded from his gaze by the brush, she took her own sweet time, fussing and fiddling, and just plain dawdling, until she heard him start to pace.

Sitting there alone in the moonlight, she was surprised at the absurd notions that occurred to her. Running away, for instance. Given the sorry condition of her legs and the fact that just walking out here had been difficult enough, she knew she wouldn't get far if she tried such a stunt. Besides, Jonathan was back in the village, and her only way of reclaiming him was to stay and see this trough.

Since running away was out of the question, Laura considered feigning illness. For tonight, anyway. But what of tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that?

It was childish to put off the inevitable. She had agreed to this sham of a marriage, and she would have to accept the consequences until such time as she could get away from the man. That would happen none too soon for Laura. The instant she got her baby safely back to Denver, all Deke Sheridan would see of her was receding dust. She certainly didn't feel obligated to keep promises she had made to him under such deplorable circumstances.

She wouldn't surrender herself into another marriage. Once had been nightmare enough. And here, in Colorado? She'd have to be mad. Only a foolish woman counted on some man to take care of her. She either found a way to fend for herself, or she suffered the consequences. In a harsh, cruel land like this, the consequences could be dire indeed.

She was helpless here, utterly helpless, a city woman from the marrow of her bones out. What earthly good was her fluency in French? Who cared if she could walk up and down two flights of stairs while balancing a book on her head? She had to get back to Boston, she simply had to. At least there she could do a halfway commendable job of raising her son into adulthood. Here in this godforsaken place, Jonathan would probably end up dead before his first birthday.

"What're you doin', darlin'? Takin' a snooze?"

Laura leaped at the deep resonance of Deke's voice and pressed a hand to her throat, willing her heart back down into her chest, where it belonged.

"No, just resting for a moment before walking back," she lied.

"You all put back together?"

She checked the buttons on her blouse with quivering fingers. "Yes."

Making no sound to warn of his approach, he emerged out of the gloom into a wash of moonlight. All six feet plus of him. Exhibiting that animal grace she was so quickly coming to resent, he moved slowly forward, his long, denim-covered legs eating up the distance with unnerving ease. Laura stiffened when he straddled the log, sat down, braced his hands in front of him, and leaned toward her.

"A nickel for 'em," he said in a voice pitched to a dangerously low tenor.

"Pardon?"

"I'd offer a penny, but you don't look willin' to sell out cheap. What troublin' thoughts are puttin' all them frown wrinkles on that pretty little forehead of yours?"

"Troubling thoughts?"

In the moonlight, his eyes glittered like chips of ice, and his teeth gleamed blue-white against the dark planes of his harshly cut features. Angled forward as he was, his long hair hung in a shimmery drape over each broad shoulder. "You ever play 'what if' with your troublin' thoughts?"

"No, I can't say as I have. I haven't much time for silly games, least of all when I'm troubled."

"It might be time well spent and save you a peck of heartache, honey."

Laura felt like a fish being maneuvered into a net. "Heartache?"

Those glittering eyes gave her no quarter. "Like say if you was thinkin'just thinkin' on it, mind youabout runnin' off from me?" He shrugged and finally broke visual contact with her to look at the stars. "It'd be time well spent to play 'what if' before tryin' it. Note I said try, 'cause your chances of succeedin' is slim."

Laura dug her fingernails into the bark of the log. It was very unnerving to have someone introduce one's most guarded thoughts as a topic of conversation. She recalled the times Deke Sheridan had looked into her eyes, the sensation she had had that he read far more than she wished to reveal.

"It's a moot point, isn't it? My baby is here, Mr. Sheridan. Why would I even want to run away?"

"Oh, you wouldn't consider doin' it right now. I meant later." He looked back at her, one winged eyebrow lifted in speculation, his mouth tipped in a smile. "You don't got what it takes to play poker, Laura. Just in case you was thinkin' about lightin' out once you get that baby back," he said evenly, "I think we need to have it understood up front that a Cheyenne man don't take real kindly to his woman runnin' off from him. Fact is, he can get downright ugly about it. I didn't make no bones about my feelin's on this marriage. It's not some temporary measure you can back out of later. I leveled with you about that before you took the leap."

He shifted his weight on the log.

"I don't wanna scare you. That's the last thing I want, especially right now, with things bein' so hard for you to get used to and all. But you and me, we'd best get us a real clear understandin'."

Laura wanted to avert her face, to break eye contact with him, but she couldn't.

"With me bein' able to track like I can," he went on softly, "you can't rule out what might happen if you try runnin' off and I catch up with you."

"What might happen?" she asked thinly.

"Let's just say I'd be mad enough to hunt cougar with a butter knife, and that's pretty damned mad."

"A-Are you threatening me with physical reprisal, Mr. Sheridan?" Laura jutted her chin. "If so, I shall hasten to inform you that I do not respond well to threats."

He smiled again. "I'll bear it in mind. Meantime, here's another troublin' thought to clutter up that pretty little head of yours. I don't never threaten."

"Oh, really?"

"Nope." He studied her for a moment, then straightened to lift a moccasined foot onto the log and loosely hug his knee. "If I say I'm gonna do somethin', it's a promise you can count on. And I'll flay the hide right off your sassy little butt if you ever try to run from me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. There ain't nothin' that'd get me madder quicker, and if you don't believe me, just try it."

He was threatening to take a strap to her backside? Even if he did strip the hide off of her, it was still a punishment one meted out to a child, a humiliating, degrading punishment that an adult should never be subjected to. His saying such a thing was a reflection of his total lack of regard for her, and all her sex.

Rage roiled within Laura, a white-hot, encompassing, overwhelming rage that was born from a sense of utter helplessness. A picture flashed in her mind of Deke Sheridan jerking her out of a stagecoach and bending her over his knee. Knowing him, he would probably add insult to injury and toss up her skirts for good measure. The most awful part was, Laura knew he could probably do it without working up a sweat.

A wise woman would keep her mouth shut. Oh, but knowing it and doing it were two different things. His martial arrogancethat syrupy malevolencehis cocksure attitude that everything would go his way or no way at all. If only she were a man. She'd knock him right off the log.

"Physical violence is no more than I would expect from a man like you," she ground out.

"I'll never be physically violent with you, Laura. Whether you trust in my word or not, you've got it on that."

"Don't make me laugh. You just threatened to flay the hide off my posterior. Or did my ears deceive me?"