Cain grimaced, resheathing his knife. He bent to retrieve his pistol, tucking it away as well. "I s'pose she's the same one."
Eli's Adam's apple bobbed, that lust-filled animal light coming into his dull eyes. "I wan' 'er, Cain. She 'uz real pretty. Like a flower."
Cain had thought of a hundred different tortures to put the woman through in the weeks he'd been battling to find Kennisaw's trail. But as he imagined Eli's rough paws mauling the woman's breasts, pleasure surged through him.
For a woman like that O'Shea bitch, rape at Eli's hands might be the most devastating torture of all. Especially if those brats Spader had talked about were there to watch it.
Cain looped one arm around Eli's shoulder as they turned back toward the saloon.
"The woman's yours as soon as we find her, Eli," Cain said with a malevolent smile. "And we will find her—and Garret MacQuade—before another month is out."
Chapter Twelve
The dawn burst over the horizon; a blaze of colors spilled across the palette of the sky. Ashleen stood by the creek bank, water pail forgotten in her hand as she watched the beauty unfolding.
She knew she should feel battered this morn by emotions too volatile to hold. Knew she should feel shame at the way she had allowed Garret MacQuade to kiss her, touch her—shame at the heat that had raced through her body as she had returned those caresses.
Maybe she was not a nun, but that should not negate all the teachings she had learned at Sister Agatha's knee, or make what had happened between her and Garret excusable.
Had she truly been fool enough to forget in those too-brief, fiery moments what succumbing to such desires had once cost her? All she believed in, all she trusted, almost all of who she was. Had she forgotten what it felt like to weep alone in the chapel after Timothy Kearny had shattered her illusions about love?
She should be angry with herself, angry with Garret. She should be humiliated, disgusted, resolved never to let such madness overtake her again.
Instead she felt only wistful, and maybe a little sad, because she had felt the promise of wonder springing between them, and then she had seen the wariness, the stark vulnerability that had been in Garret's quicksilver eyes.
Who was he, this man who had made her forget oaths sworn to herself five years back? This man who had opened to her worlds of possibilities? Was he truly the hard-edged, snarling man whose temper seemed constantly honed to sharp-tongued anger? Was he the hide-tough trail guide who rode, confident, oblivious to dangers of hostile Indians, wild animals, the unforgiving terrain? Or was he the man Ashleen had glimpsed when they had kissed in the moonlight, the tormented artist, so beautiful, so excruciatingly sensitive that he had built unbreachable bastions around his heart?
"It doesn't matter," she whispered to the fluffy mauve-tipped clouds scudding overhead. "I can't let it matter to me. I have four children I'm responsible for, and even—even if I didn't, I doubt Garret would thank me for probing into things that are none of my concern."
She knew that it was true, abominably reasonable. She could ill afford complicating her affairs when they were already so hopelessly tangled. And yet she couldn't erase from her memory the unbearable hunger that had been in Garret's face, the longing that had burned through his palms, seeping deep into her skin.
If the stories Kennisaw had told her about 'his boy' on the nightmarish road to West Port had been true, then Garret MacQuade had been needing someone for a very long time.
And once he surrendered to the clamoring inside him, Ashleen sensed that no man would love more fiercely, more completely.
It made her ache inside to know that she could never be the woman to loose such feelings in him. That she could not be the one to break through the layers shielding the real Garret MacQuade from the pain of the outside world.
Ashleen grimaced at her reflection in the rippling clear water. At least she'd not have to worry about avoiding the temptation Garret posed. No doubt the man would now be dodging her as if she were infected with the plague.
She thought of him as he had been the night before, with Meggie curled at his feet. His sun-bronzed face had held the same quiet belligerence that had been on the features of the children when first she had brought them into the circle of family at St. Michael's. He had been painfully aware that he did not belong. But there had been something in his face—just the slightest twist to that full, firm mouth that had betrayed how much he had wanted to.
Wanted to? Ash thought, mentally shaking herself as she stooped down to fill the bucket. If that wasn't the most insane fantasy she'd ever entertained. The mere idea that Garret would want to involve himself with four squabbling children was absurd.
No, that was one facet of Garret MacQuade's personality that Ashleen knew she could not deny—the man was patently uncomfortable around children. Not with the irritation and impatience inherent in so many other men—men who could not be bothered to waste their time upon those younger and, therefore, much less important than they.
In Garret it was almost as if the mere sight of them opened old wounds, chipped away at his inner defenses, leaving him raw. She had seen the way he had looked at Meggie, had seen his eyes roving to Liam, Shevonne, even the surly Renny. And despite Garret's temper, Ashleen had seen some measure of enjoyment in his face as he had watched the little ones scatter about the campsite, playing at hoodman blind.
He had tried not to watch them. Tried not to watch her. But those efforts only infused the times he could no longer resist it with more power, more unwanted longing, more niggling aggravation.
She wanted to tease him, to hold him, to comfort him, as if he were no bigger than Liam. She wanted to lay with Garret garbed in nothing but spun moonlight, wanted to delve deep into the passions she had tasted upon his lips.
Yet all she could really do was to get through their time on the trail as uneventfully as possible, focusing all her hopes, all her dreams on the children.
And from what she had been able to tell from Renny's reactions to her this morning, that task was going to take every ounce of patience she possessed. The boy had seemed a bit subdued, but somewhat better during the hour she had spun Sir Alibad's tale the night before. She had even wrenched a smile out of him when she'd tucked him up in bed.
But this morning Renny had been worse than she'd ever seen him. She had tried to talk to him, to discover what was upsetting him so, but the boy would scarcely talk to her, scarcely look at her. His eyes had been brimful of hurt in a peaked face, yet they had snapped with such temper that she had set him to doing tasks as far away from Liam's nose as possible.
But in the end she had simply not had the energy to probe into whatever was ailing Renny—had felt a growing sense of aggravation and impatience with a temper that—even she was beginning to agree with Sister Bridget—had gotten out of hand.
