Elizabeth could swear he was fondling her hair.
Or was he?
It was hard to tell, but it felt as though he’d left off the comforting to run his fingers along the length of her braid. And then suddenly the sensation stopped. She glanced up to gauge his thoughts, but his expression was shuttered.
How was it that he seemed so completely unaffected by their proximity, while she, on the other hand, had never felt so agitated? What was wrong with her that she would stare at him so brazenly?
“Tell me something, Doc.”
That voice. So deep. So masculine. It sent another quiver down her spine. He was so close she could smell the warm leather he wore. And his buckskin britches were so snug over his thighs that she found she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the muscular delineations.
Merciful heaven, in that hypnotic moment she thought she might do or say anything he asked. She nodded, not even realizing that she had.
“What did you have on Brady to send him scrambling for cover like an old henpecked rooster?”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved unconsciously, trembling with the need to smile. And then, as she recalled Brady’s alarmed expression, she couldn’t control her sudden burst of nervous hysterics. It was as though her emotions had gone haywire. She giggled until on the verge of tears, then looked up at him abashedly, knowing he probably thought her demented after witnessing such an abrupt change in mood.
“I suppose you’d like to know what it is that’s so blessed funny?”
Her throaty laughter shook through Cutter. It was genuine and uninhibited, but sounded much too earthy to be innocent, and it gave him an immediate physical reaction. “Reckon I might,” he allowed.
Elizabeth shook her head and again lifted her glass, sipping from it almost absently, and clearing her throat when it threatened to send her into another coughing fit.
“Well,” she said, “Brady’s one of those who likes to drink a bit too much.”
Cutter shifted uncomfortably. For her sake, he hoped she wouldn’t get a yen to ogle his leg again. He didn’t think he’d be able to hide the effect she had on him. Just remembering the way her eyes had flared slightly in innocent surprise and her pupils had dilated as she’d gawked at him was enough to make him permanently rooty, and the evidence was conspicuous.
She took another sip, clearing her throat daintily, and this time it was Cutter who felt discomfited.
Her lips were her best feature, he decided. Full and pouty, just beggin’ to be kissed. “... always having accidents,” he heard her say. He shook his head to clear it of his lusty thoughts.
“One night,” she continued, “he came in after catching his thumb in his gun hammer—don’t ask me how he managed that! Anyhow, he and his buddies had been shooting at tins, and he came sauntering in, chock-full of brag and fight, and told my father to ‘just stitch it up.’ But Papa didn’t want to do it without giving him whiskey first—Mr. Brady doesn’t seem to like pain very much,” she explained quickly. “So when my father left the room to look for a jug, Mr. Brady took an immediate liking to one of his shiny new surgical knives.” She glanced up to see whether he was paying attention.
Her expression softening suddenly, she gave a little half-hearted chuckle. “Papa and I watched from the doorway as Mr. Brady wrestled with his imaginary bear. You should have seen him, Mr. McKenzie!”
“Wish I had,” he said evenly, trying to ignore his growing discomfort as well as he could.
“Believe it or not, I thought he might manage to lose that scuffle, too,” she said softly, distantly.
Despite the fact that she was still looking at him, Cutter had the notion she was somewhere else entirely.
He couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering down and assessing her figure through the bulk of her clothes. She was probably much too skinny, he told himself... not even a handful.
He raised his brows, his nostrils flaring as he cleared away the sudden tightness from his throat. “So how’d you happen to know it was a bear he was wrestling?”
The way Cutter saw it, his best bet was to keep Elizabeth talking... keep them both preoccupied. Jo would likely take a shotgun to his ass if she found him rutting after her one and only friend—when the girl was chin-deep in her misery, at that.
Come to think of it, he doubted if either of them would appreciate it all that much.
She shook her head faintly, as though to escape the memory. “Well, because he was talking to the silly thing, is how. He stabbed ’n’ wrestled with nothing but thin air, and then he reared back to gut it and stabbed himself in the—” She glanced up at him suddenly, her brows furrowing.
“Where?” Cutter demanded, inhaling deeply. It was the wrong thing to do, because he caught her scent in that breath. The sweetest feminine scent. His blood heated, surging like molten lava through his veins.
“His er... his... lower posterior,” Elizabeth whispered.
It took a moment for him to register what she’d said, but when it finally came, his roar of laughter was genuine, warm and rich, much as her father’s had been. It set Elizabeth immediately at ease.
“I can see it now,” he said, still chuckling as he poured Elizabeth another brimming glassful.
