The odd tune was familiar, but she couldn’t place it, and it provoked her.
Desperately she tried to ignore him.
She couldn’t wait to get home and bathe, and it was that thought with which she consoled herself: a bath... How wonderful it would be to sink into a warm tub of water.
A great believer in cleanliness, Elizabeth loved her baths and had ordered a tremendous porcelain tub from the catalog, one of the very few luxuries she’d ever afforded herself. There was just something about treating so much infirmity that made one want to soak a lifetime in soap and water. Besides, as much dusty ground as she covered making house calls, a bath was almost always necessary at the end of the day.
It helped her to forget. Forget that her dear father was no longer around to hum her to sleep at night. For a while, after her mother had gone, she had been afraid of the silence. Not the dark so much, because that in itself was never so terrifying. It was rather soothing, really. Only the silence had terrified her, because in the silence she was alone. So Papa would sit in his own room, one door down, and hum to himself. She’d never asked him to, but he’d done so nonetheless. For her. Because he’d known—to reassure her that he was still there.
Cutter’s whistling pierced her thoughts, and again she concentrated on that bath—that warm, cleansing bath.
Her father, too, had believed in cleanliness, and she was thoroughly convinced, though there was no real medical evidence to substantiate the claim, that cleanliness was an integral part of any cure. She always cleaned her instruments in strong water. Truth to tell, it was the only thing whiskey was good for—besides getting decent folks into trouble.
This morning was a very good example for the record.
She surveyed the landscape, fretting. Nothing! Nothing at all seemed familiar to her! Surely she’d made enough house calls outside of town that she should know the area by now? But to her dismay, she found that she didn’t recognize a single thing. Not one thing!
Of course, she reminded herself, worrying at her lower lip, it was hard to see much for the tall grass. Grassland was grassland, after all, and there wasn’t much different about any one stretch of it to distinguish it from the next. Right?
Yes, of course, that was what it was. She nodded, as though to settle her fears. And so it was a complete shock to find herself suddenly staring at a gathering of blurry, nondescript, and very unfamiliar buildings in the immediate distance. Her first reaction was to reach for her spectacles. Finding them gone was her undoing. Her eyes widened in alarm. How could she have been so absorbed in her thoughts that she wouldn’t have noticed her spectacles were missing? Halting abruptly, she whirled to face Cutter, hands on her hips.
“Where are they?”
Cutter came up beside her, his brow lifting in response to her question. “Where’s what?”
“My spectacles!”
“Took you long enough to notice they were gone, don’t y’ think?”
Elizabeth ignored his goading. What business was it of his anyway? She turned her palm up impatiently, certain that Cutter had her spectacles somewhere on his person, and silently pleading with him to give them back.
There was an odd glitter in his eyes as he stared at her hand. Then his gaze flicked up to her eyes, considering her. They were so dark, and fixed on her so intently, that for an interminable moment Elizabeth felt as though he were looking straight into her soul, searching out every dark corner to reveal it.
Feeling unsure of herself, she withdrew her hand slightly. The moment was excruciating. She felt utterly bared to his scrutiny, as though he knew all of her secrets somehow, every fear, every last little ache in her heart. More than that even, she once again had the notion the man pitied her, and a strange pang nearly overcame her outrage. Nearly.
A quiver passed down her spine, breaking the spell. “Well?” she asked. Unnerved, she watched as he turned from her finally and reached into the saddlebag, retrieving her bent frames. Without speaking, she accepted them from him, quickly placed them upon the bridge of her nose, then turned back to the cluster of buildings in the distance, fully expecting them to have reconfigured themselves somehow. The images only became sharper, more distinct, and her shock was audible. She gave a startled little cry.
She pointed at the buildings. “What is that?”
Cutter lifted the brim of his hat slightly, his brows rising as he peered speculatively at the structures in question. “Why,” he drawled with distinct mockery, his gaze immediately reverting to hers, “can’t be too sure, Miz Bowcock, but seems to be a town.” His mouth lifted slightly at the corners, yet lift it did, and Elizabeth had suddenly reached her breaking point.
“Not Sioux Falls, it isn’t!”
“Never said it was.”
“But you... you did say... and I-I thought...” Torn between anger and embarrassment, she groaned, and her cheeks began to heat again. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” she cried out in frustration. “Why didn’t you say something? You knew I was walking in the wrong direction!”
To her alarm, he began to chuckle, and then to laugh outright, and suddenly Elizabeth couldn’t help herself. She flung herself at him, snatching him by the arm and yanking downward with all her might.
Never had anyone infuriated her so!
To her discredit, he barely budged from the saddle. Instead, with his free arm he clutched at his side, hooting all the louder as she pulled in vain on his other arm. Crying out in frustration, Elizabeth pounded his thigh.
His laughter slowing to chuckles, Cutter tried to seize Elizabeth’s wrists, to save his leg from any more injury. But in her fury, Elizabeth was quicker, and he took two cuffs on the hand he’d held out as a buffer.
Without warning, she found herself hoisted from the ground, onto his mount. One arm imprisoned her while he simply sat there and laughed into her flyaway mass of hair—another thing she hadn’t noticed! Just how had her hair managed to come loose from its braid? Though as soon as she considered it, she knew, and her cheeks burned brighter at the very thought of the liberties he had taken with her. Good night! What else might he have done without her knowledge? And how dare he make fun of her! She wiggled, to no avail, trying for the second time in the same day to free herself from his merciless hold.
“Heathen savage!” she accused him, mindless with fury now. With her hands trapped by his embrace, she had no alternative but to use her teeth to gain her freedom. She lunged at his neck, like a viper, but the shock of his warm male flesh on her tongue made her suddenly bolt backward in alarm. Or maybe it was Cutter’s quick reaction that pulled her away from him. Elizabeth wasn’t quite certain. All she knew was that he tasted of salt, smelled purely of man, a scent so mind-jarring that her body quickened wildly in response. It startled her so much that she simply sat, staring at him in utter bewilderment.
