Stacey Kayne – Mountain Wild (страница 4)

“You got some kind of death wish I should know about?” asked Duce.

“Why would you think—?”

“You’re lucky that woman didn’t fill you full of buckshot. Or didn’t you see the way she laid out Strafford?”

“She had a rifle, not a shotgun. And he likely frightened her, grabbing her the way he did.”

“Frightened her? That’s it,” Duce said, shoving him across the road. “We’re headed to the whorehouse before you end up dead or courting a mountain shrew.”

Garret laughed, and didn’t argue. Watching that woman knock Strafford down a few notches had lightened his mood.

Finally a bit of justice in this world.

Chapter Two

A soft swirl of snowflakes cold against her face, Maggie tugged her hood low and tightened her hold on the rope of her sled as she increased her stride through the soft powder. Her body ached to hunker down in her warm bed.

Two more miles.

The crunch of her snowshoes pressing through the soft ground echoed across the silent countryside. Dark clouds loomed to the north, telling her this was only a small reprieve in the blizzard. The late-winter storm had come on strong and without much warning the prior evening. Maggie barely had time to skin and dress the big buck she’d shot before having to bury her kill in the snow and seek shelter. Huddling in a dank alcove near the river had been no way to pass a frigid February night.

Despite the inconvenience, her hunt had been worthwhile. The frozen deer meat on her sled would last her the rest of winter, and then some.

A streamer of sunlight pierced the thick gray sky and glistened against an embankment of fresh snow up ahead. The silver sparkle captured her attention. As she drew closer she noted the metallic gleam was a spur. A spur attached to the vague outline of a boot buried beneath the snow.

Maggie slowed her stride. Her breath hit the cold air in a puff of white as her gaze moved across the long, lumpy mound.

Some fool cowpoke had gotten himself caught in the storm. He’d likely ventured up here looking for strays. High country weather was nothing like the lowlands. Lying on his side, the bulk of him was covered by a foot of snow.

The storm hadn’t been that bad—nothing like the freeze two winters back. The deadly cold had caught beast and man in its clutches for miles around, reaching deep into the plains. The stench of death had lasted long into the spring. Any cowboy worth his salt would have learned from such disaster, and sought shelter or at least dug himself in to wait out the blizzard.

She shook her head and pressed on. As Ira used to say, she’d leave it to God to have sympathy for the men too stupid to save themselves. The world could get by without another cowpoke. Hundreds littered the lowlands around her mountain, whooping and hollering at their herds of cattle. At the rate things were going, she’d soon be crowded out of her mountain home just as the Indians had been forced from theirs.

A whimper broke across the winter silence. The snow-covered mound shifted.

Maggie hitched her shoulder, slinging her rifle forward, into her hands. Caution prickled at her skin as she watched the long shape rise up near the center.

A dog stood and gave a vigorous shake. She recognized the mutt’s shaggy black fur and four white paws. Boots. The sound of Garret Daines calling after his dog was as familiar to her as a meadowlark’s song.

Oh, no. Maggie’s breath stalled as she cautiously approached the figure partially buried beneath a blanket of white. Something inside her softened at the sight of pale hair and familiar features.

Why did it have to be Daines?

She crouched beside him. He had the pallor of a dead man. Blood matted his pale hair. A dark bruise protruded on his forehead—suspiciously shaped like the blunt end of a rifle.

Someone had knocked him out.

She glanced around the clearing. Undisturbed snow coated the ground, blanketing wide-spaced shrubs and trees. Any tracks had long since been snowed over.

How long has he been here?

She brushed away some of the packed powder and noted the slight movement of his chest. Relief swamped her. Biting the fingertip of her glove, she pulled the lined leather from her hand. She slid her fingers along his stubble-coated jaw. The man didn’t so much as flinch. His skin was cold, but still soft. She didn’t see any blackening signs of frostbite. His dog had likely kept him from freezing, but his shallow breathing didn’t make even a slight mist in the frigid air.

He wouldn’t live long if he didn’t get out of the cold.

She reached for his coat and his dog barked, the sharp sound echoing through the winter silence. His master’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.

She glanced at the dog prancing nervously beside her. The dog had distinctly different colored eyes. One deep green, the other pale blue.

Peculiar.

“Come’ere, Boots,” she said, holding out her bare hand.

The dog’s damp nose bumped against her palm.

“You stay friendly,” she said, scratching behind its ear, “and we’ll see about waking up your master.”

She fisted the front of Daines’s thick jacket and tugged him up, out of the snow. “Daines!” she shouted, giving him a shake. “Wake up, Daines!”

Pale lashes lifted. Glazed green eyes stared up at her.

“Ma’am?”

For being half-frozen, his vision was keener than most. Not too many folks looked at her long enough to determine her gender. “You’ve got to get up,” she said.

“Cattle…Duce…” His lids drooped.

“You don’t get out of this cold, you’re gonna lose more than cattle,” she said, certain she was talking to herself.

His head tipped back and Maggie fell forward, his dead weight dragging her down with him. She landed flat on top of him. Her bare hand plunged into the bite of ice-cold snow.

“Damn it, Daines,” she shouted, pushing off him. “Wake up!”

He blinked, but didn’t move another muscle.

He’d already been exposed to the cold for too long, addling what she knew to be an otherwise sharp mind. Ira had fallen into an icy river once and had emerged from the frigid water dumber than a rock and helpless as a babe.

Maggie sat back on her heels and knocked the snow from the cuff of her white fur coat. The cold breeze snaked inside her sleeve, sending a chill across her warm skin. She quickly pulled on her glove. Her gut burned as the true extent of his situation sunk in. He wasn’t going to make it.

He was too far from his ranch, at least six miles. The last thing she wanted was to take this Viking cowboy inside her home. There wasn’t a soul alive who knew the location of her cabin. She lived up in the dense wild country for a reason—she didn’t want to be bothered. The one time she’d had unexpected company she spent a whole spring and summer relocating.

The fact that her visitors had been relatives of Garret Daines didn’t ease her reluctance to help him. By her account, his relation to Chance and Cora Morgan made him more of a threat. Morgan and his wife knew too many of her secrets already and she knew too well how a helpful hand could turn to a threat in the blink of an eye.

Don’t trust your back to no one. Ira’s mantra was embedded in her mind.

Thanks to her run-in with Nathan a few months ago, wanted posters now hung in surrounding settlements featuring a poorly drawn sketch of a mountain shrew, announcing a five-hundred-dollar reward for the capture of Mad Mag.

Why should she put herself in further danger by helping a man she barely knew?

“M-m-ma’am?” His unfocused green eyes blinked up at her. “Are y-y-a…all right?”

Was she all right? She wasn’t the one lying half-frozen in the snow.

The blatant concern in his expression prodded at her usually silent conscience. Garret Daines seemed to have more charm than sense. Despite his intimidating size, he had a kindness to him that had struck her right off the first time she’d spied him in the low country. With his unusual pale hair and a deep laughter that could carry for miles, he was always easy to spot. Her Viking protector hadn’t been smiling a few months back—a vision that had been plaguing her dreams ever since. His gaze had been hard and focused as he had stood between her and the riled citizens of Bitterroot Springs.

He’d defended her. Her. Mad Mag, the local lunatic.

I can’t just leave him here to freeze. Unlike those who’d betrayed her, Garret Daines wasn’t a man who’d stand by while harm befell another. He’d do as Ira had done, taking on a burden he didn’t want to save the life of a stranger. She’d also been small enough for a grown man to toss over his shoulder and cart off into the woods. She couldn’t carry Garret Daines five feet, much less up this mountain through the snow. She had to get him up.

“Help me, Garret,” she said in her best damsel voice. “It’s so cold. I need to get home. Can you help me?”

He nodded, muscles bunching beneath his thick coat. He tried to push up, and groaned, his stiff body rebelling against the movement. She gripped his arms and helped to tug him up. Snow clung to his thick coat and buffalo-hide chaps—clothes that should have kept him warm. His hat lay crumpled in the top of the outline of his fallen form. She noted the creases pressed into his left cheek. His dog and his hat had protected those handsome features from hours of exposure. But the icy weather had taken a toll on his mind. He stared blankly at the ground before him.