She kept feeding the fire with the extra branches. As the night wore on, she got hungry, but after Morgan’s warning, she wasn’t about to go looking through the mule packs for food. But she was going to wake him the very moment she saw the break of dawn, and kept watching the sky in all directions for it.
“Still here?”
She gasped and glanced back toward the fire to see him standing up. She wondered what had awoken him. It wasn’t dawn yet. But then he walked about ten feet away—to relieve himself. She rolled her eyes and pushed herself to her feet to head to the closest bush to do the same. She felt no embarrassment this time, and after massaging her legs all night, it wasn’t as painful to walk as it had been yesterday. Her leg muscles still hurt. It would probably be days yet before they returned to normal. Or before she was back in Butte.
She actually looked forward to that, which was amazing because she didn’t consider it a civilized town, but at least she could get a bath there, and a proper meal, and a laundress. And a new hat! Hers must have fallen off yesterday during all that trotting, and she hadn’t even noticed until last night. Morgan had already ruined it, so she’d only sighed a little over losing it. Two days in the same clothes, however, was scandalous and worth crying over, but she couldn’t very well change without taking a bath first, and she wasn’t going to get one out here. She felt so dirty after yesterday’s ride!
When she returned to the campfire, she saw Morgan saddling his horse. She had a feeling there wouldn’t be any breakfast before they departed, at least nothing that she couldn’t eat while riding. He confirmed that thought when he handed her two strips of hard jerky before stamping out the fire. She retrieved her canteen and parasol, slipping her hand through each strap to keep them on her wrist, then tried to gnaw off a piece of jerky. It wasn’t easy. If it didn’t have a salty taste, she would have suspected he’d given her leather to chew on.
“Put this on.”
She scowled when she saw him holding out a small empty sack. “Put it on what?”
“Your head. The rest of the way, you don’t get to see.”
She was mortified. But there was a bright side. If he didn’t want her to see how he reached his mine from here, it was because he intended to release her eventually. So he didn’t plan on killing her after all. But she couldn’t bring herself to put a sack on her head and refused to take it from him.
“I’ll faint with that covering my face if it gets as hot as it was yesterday,” she warned. “And a blindfold will do just as well, won’t it?”
He said nothing. He didn’t move either. If he insisted, she was going to balk and fight tooth and nail. Of course she’d fail. He was too bloody big. But he finally pulled the bandanna off his neck and tied it over her eyes. A concession! So he was capable of reason?
He picked her up again and placed her on his horse, but this time he mounted behind her. She even guessed why: so he could easily see if she tried to remove her blindfold. This extreme tactic smacked of fanaticism about keeping the location of his mine a secret from her, or perhaps anyone. Which made her wonder why he hadn’t shot her father for showing up near his mine. Or were the two mines not really that close together? Maybe it was only Shawn Sullivan that Morgan didn’t want in the area. But the man had seemed nice, his daughter even nicer. What exactly would happen if Sullivan learned of the location?
She really didn’t like being seated in front of Morgan. She felt too much of him behind her, and every time he did something with the reins he was holding, his forearms brushed against her waist. But she held her tongue, afraid he might turn around and refuse to take her to the mines if she fussed too much. Good grief, it was abhorrent that her future depended on this particular man!
As the morning grew warmer, she shrugged the blanket off her shoulders and opened her parasol, not realizing it would block Morgan’s view. But she found that out quick enough when he snatched it from her hand. He didn’t close it, simply placed it on her head as if it were a hat!
“Don’t lift it any higher or I’ll toss it away,” he growled as he put the handle back in her hand.
Violet sighed, aware that, once again, she must look ridiculous. Not that she cared. After all, for whom did she need to keep up appearances out here?
“How much longer before this nightmare ride ends and we reach your mine?”
“Depends.”
She snorted. “I’m beginning to think you don’t know.”
He laughed. Again, the sound of genuine humor coming from him surprised her. It made her wonder if he wasn’t always a rude, bearish brute. He used to be a rancher, from a family of ranchers to the east. What would they think if they could see him now? And why had he left home? Kicked out for being the black sheep? One dastardly deed too many?
After her nervous, wakeful night, the lack of sleep caught up to her as soon as the trotting ended. With Morgan’s arms on either side of her holding the reins, the horse’s slow, steady motion was making her drowsy. She drifted off, unaware that she was leaning back against the man behind her.
The shot from a rifle was a very rude awakening. Another snake? She lowered one side of her blindfold, but didn’t see anything dead nearby, so she put the cloth back in place before he noticed.
“What did you shoot this time?” she asked curiously as he dismounted.
“The cougar loping toward us. Got him just as he pounced. He thought he’d found dinner.”
Pounced? Had she almost died? She shivered slightly, glad that she hadn’t seen that coming. She might have gotten hysterical, then he might have missed his shot. What a horrid thought! God, she hated being out here in the wilderness where death lurked all around them and she had only this man to protect her. She wished she knew how to shoot, wished she had the courage to if she did know, but mostly wished she didn’t feel so grateful that she didn’t have to—because of him.
“Will you make camp to cook it?” she asked when he didn’t get back on the horse right away.
“No, it’s one of the bigger wild cats. Some people out here consider it a delicacy since it tastes like pork, but I’m guessing you’d turn up your nose at it as you did with the snake.”
“You guessed right.”
“I still need to take it home to dispose of,” he added.
“Why?”
