“Mmm,” she said, a ghost of a smile touching her lips, and Cutter found himself wondering with a scowl who she thought she was with.
“Too dark,” she whimpered. “Please...”
Almost tenderly, as he would with a child, he smoothed the hair from her face. “Please what?”
She moaned something unintelligible, then whimpered again, the sound mournful. It twisted his gut.
He shook her, though not enough to wake her, just enough to prod her into speaking again, wanting to be sure she was all right. “Lizbeth?”
“Hum—to—me...”
Hum?
Cutter furrowed his brow. She wanted him to hum? Shaking his head in puzzlement, he shrugged, thinking that anything that kept her quiet was worth a try. She settled back against him, as though she’d somehow felt that affirmative gesture in her sleep. And for the first time in years, Cutter put sound to the melody he’d first heard from his mother’s lips as a toddler. As he hummed, he looked down every little while to verify she was still asleep.
Jo had warned him she would be mad.
Just how mad would she be?
With a smile, he decided that he rather liked the brightness of her eyes when she was angry and he couldn’t wait to see her expression when she awoke.
He continued to hum softly, remembering and interjecting Cheyenne words, a phrase here, a phrase there, and Elizabeth was soon completely subdued by the vibrations that came from deep within his chest.
As absorbed as Cutter was with his thoughts of the woman lying loosely over his lap, he never anticipated the jab of her elbow to his crotch. It had been a halfhearted movement, with little enough strength behind it, but it impacted just right...
Or just wrong.
For the briefest second his jaw dropped, as though he couldn’t quite believe what she’d done, then snapped shut, jarring his teeth into his skull. Resisting the urge to jump from the saddle, he clenched his jaw over the pain that shot through his jewels, and he barely heard her grumbled words.
“Shcoot over... not ’nough room.”
Oblivious to the pain she’d caused him, and without waiting to see that heshcooted, she sighed in her sleep, wiggling to make herself more comfortable.
Crushing the urge to howl out in agony, somehow Cutter managed to hold on to the reins as he seized her arm and gently lifted her off his belongings. Even the slightest movement worsened his predicament. Holding his breath against the pain, he managed to lift himself somewhat in the stirrups and hunker over, desperately seeking a tolerable position.
Couldn’t wake her—damn, damn, couldn’t wake her—couldn’t throw her either!
His hands were otherwise occupied, or he would have shielded himself at once. Were Elizabeth not on the horse, he’d have reined in and hurled himself into the ground—praying for a swift death.
Hell, if the blasted woman hadn’t been in his lap to begin with, he wouldn’t have this friggin’ crisis to deal with!
Sweat beaded his brow, his palms turning clammy as he held Elizabeth steady so she wouldn’t slip. Just before he turned blue from lack of oxygen, he blew out a breath, gulping in the sweet night air.
Unable to hold his position any longer, he sat again, white-faced, clenching his thigh muscles against the loping movement of his Palouse. And with arms that felt suddenly sapped of strength, he managed to shift Elizabeth so that she was sitting astride, the back of her head nestling cozily against his chest.
Incredibly, she slept on, oblivious to his crisis. In spite of the jerky maneuvers it had taken to sit her upright. In spite of the knuckle-whitening pain that lingered in his rocks.
Damn, but it’d be a good idea to get her her own mount as soon as possible.
* * *
Every bumpand bounce served to urge Elizabeth toward a wretched state of wakefulness.
She didn’t want to wake up. Deep down, something warned her against it. She prayed for mercy, but the movement continued, rocking her, prodding her, until she could no longer ignore it.
Her head felt as though it had been trampled by a herd of buffalo, she thought sourly. Peeping through her lashes, she grimaced at the bright light that stabbed at her pupils, making her head throb all the more.
Just where in creation was she?
