He could hardly believe there was really a person in the world who had never caught raindrops on her tongue. “Try it,” he said, grinning.
His lopsided smile failed to charm her out of her fear. “I’m afraid.”
“Of rain?” He saw that her eyes were wet. With raindrops or with tears, he didn’t know. An uneasy feeling came over him. “Look, don’t cry. You said you felt safe with me. You said—”
“I am not crying, I am not afraid of rain, and your guns cannot protect me from what I fear.”
“But what—”
“Why did you have us travel so slowly when the rain started?” she demanded. “Why couldn’t we have hurried to find shelter?”
Because he knew profound fear was behind her anger, he did not react to it. “Hurrying would have overheated the horses. Then we would have stopped, they’d have stood in the cold rain, and they’d have gotten a sudden chill that might have killed them. Miss Worth, what is it that you’re afraid of? What—”
Before he could question her further, another crooked finger of lightning severed the dark shadows in the sky. In the next instant he nearly lost his footing as Theodosia threw herself at him.
He enfolded her in his arms and understood then that it was lightning that frightened her. She was right; his guns couldn’t hold lightning at bay.
Keeping her next to him, he retrieved a thick blanket from the sack of supplies in the back of the buckboard, then forced her to the ground and beneath the shelter of the wagon.
They lay side by side. Her shudder shaking his arms, he covered her with the blanket and gathered her close.
“Hold me,” she whispered.
“I am.” He frowned when she began to squirm. It was almost as if she were trying to crawl inside him. He draped his left leg over her hip.
The heavy weight of his leg somehow comforted her. She buried her face in the warm, moist crook of his shoulder and caught the fragrance of sunshine clinging to his skin. The scent not only reassured her that the storm would end, it also aroused her senses. “I’ve—I’ve never been in a man’s arms before.”
“Yeah? And what scientific thing are you thinking about being in mine?”
His gentle teasing deepened the feeling of security that continued to steal over her. “I’m pondering your impressive pectoralis major, deltoideus, and biceps brachii.”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You like my arm muscles.”
“And chest muscles,” she added with a smile. “Mr. Montana? About the rain—how did you know?”
He slipped his fingers beneath the wet strands of hair that were stuck to her face and slid them away. “The birds were flying close to the ground, Miss Worth. The sounds were sharper, and everything smelled stronger than usual. Three sure signs of rain.”
His explanation busied her mind and freed it from all lingering thoughts of the storm. “Sluggish air. Heavy air. Yes, yes. That would cause the birds to fly low, just as it would intensify odors and noises. I’ve never considered that possibility but have only utilized the cloud formations to forecast the weather.”
In that moment she felt deeper respect for him blossom inside her. She lifted her face to him and smiled. “You have taught me something I did not know, Mr. Montana. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me.”
He’d never considered reading rain signs to be wisdom. The knowledge hadn’t come from a schoolbook; he’d just sort of picked it up somehow and had always thought of it as normal sense.
She had called it wisdom. And she’d expressed gratitude for having learned it from him.
Her appreciation tugged at the same odd yet tender emotions he’d felt earlier in the afternoon. They seemed to radiate from his chest, spreading slowly and warmly through him.
Like the effects of whiskey.
He stiffened. A man lost all sense, all control, when he had too much to drink, and that was exactly how he felt now. Like a man made senseless, not by liquor, but by awoman.
A beautiful whiskey-eyed woman who fully planned to get herself pregnant, give the baby away, and then sail off to Brazil to discover the miracle cure for baldness within the moist and mysterious depths of beetle mouths.
And he thought he felt something for a woman like that?
He smiled at his own foolishness. It was a damned good thing he’d be rid of Theodosia by tomorrow.
Her lunacy was obviously rubbing off on him.
