Even now, as Ashleen plucked a riot of flowers, he felt an urge to go to her, warn her of stinging nettles and poison ivy and poisonous snakes.
"You're losing your mind, MacQuade," Garret grated to himself. "No one—no one—could really be all that woman appears to be."
Then why did she seem almost to shimmer with innocence, spiced by just enough mischievous humor to keep her from being priggishly pious? Why did he watch her whenever she wasn't looking? A gnawing sense of emptiness, of need grew within him until he wanted to go to her, bury himself in the dreamy-sweet world in her eyes.
For two weeks he had been fighting to ignore her, to keep from speaking to her, from listening to the loving banter between her and the children. Their familial love was a deceptive cocoon of security whose fragility Garret knew only too well.
And now here she was, trailing about in a sea of wildflowers, laughing at birds, her face shining with a beauty so heart-wrenching Garret could hardly breathe.
Well, she could damn well get back to the wagon, get far enough away so that he didn't have to see her smile, didn't have to see the bright gold of her hair, didn't have to hear her laugh.
"Bloody hell," he bit out. He'd agreed to guide her blasted wagon; he hadn't agreed to lay himself open to this kind of torture.
Jamming the charcoal and his half-finished drawing into a saddlebag, he turned and spurred his horse toward her, the thundering of the animal's hooves giving him some small relief. She looked up, surprised, a little alarmed, the flowers dropping from her fingers.
He reined in an arm's breadth from where she stood, her eyes suddenly wide, cheeks paled.
"M-Mr. MacQuade... is there something wrong?"
"What the devil are you doing out here?" he snapped, swinging down from the gelding's back.
Her mouth dropped open at his harsh words, then her lips thinned into a line, and her eyes narrowed as she realized that no imminent peril was threatening.
No peril, Garret thought grimly, except the clamoring in his loins.
Her eyes were strangely clouded, uncertain as she looked up at him. "I'm out here because... well"—she hesitated—"I wanted to invite you to supper."
"Supper." Garret was damned if he'd make this any easier after the miserable nights filled with fantasies that he'd suffered because of her.
"Supper," she said tartly. "You know, Mr. MacQuade. You open your mouth, but instead of spewing out swear words, you stuff in food."
"There's enough jerky packed in my saddlebags to take me to Santa Fe, if need be. And I hardly think you can be eager for my charming company. You'll have to find someone else to play martyr to."
Her face flushed and her eyes blazed, but Garret was distressingly aware of a sheen of moisture clouding the enchanting blue with something that might be tears.
"Blast you, anyway! Why do you have to be so—so ox-headed? I just thought... well... I might not be eager for your—what did you call it?—charming company, but I think..." She faltered.
Garret followed Ashleen's gaze to the wagon tracks baking in the sun and the lone little figure wandering there, her yellow dress making her seem almost as much a splash of blossom as the flowers Ashleen had been plucking moments before.
"I think maybe Meggie is."
Her words made Garret's hands clench on the reins, a sudden whirling of dizziness overtaking him as he stared at the little girl who, despite her difficulty, reminded him of his own small sister, lost an eternity ago.
"I've been trying ever since I found her to get her to speak," Ashleen went on in a rush. "Tried to get her to pour out the terror, the grief, the fear that keeps her silent. I've tried everything. Anything. But she won't—maybe can't—respond. Even with me she's withdrawn. And with most other people—especially strangers—it's as if she looks right through them. As if they don't exist."
Garret cleared his throat, feeling off-balance. "I'm sorry. About the girl, I mean. But I don't see what I have to do with—"
His words choked off as a hand drifted feather-light onto his rigid arm, the contact jolting him to his core.
"Sheseesyou, Mr. MacQuade. I don't know how or why, or what it means. I only know that she looks at you. Really looks at you. Often."
"And that means something?"
A wistful half smile tipped those lips he was aching to kiss. "I pray so." She turned toward him, taking his hands in her soft, warm ones. "I know we've not been on the best of terms since—well, since the beginning."
He could see by the delicate flush along her cheekbones that she was remembering the moment she spent in his arms.
"And I know I've no right to impose upon your kindness any more than I already have. But if you would consider coming to dinner tonight... being close enough to Meggie so that she might..." Her words trailed off, and Garret saw the fragile hope. And if she'd asked him to impale himself on a Sioux war lance, he knew that in that moment he would do so.
