Her heart soaring, she welcomed the sweet invasion of his tongue, arched against him, frantic to feel him, to be closer to him.
Then he cupped her bottom, pulled her hard against him, and she felt the heat of his arousal against her belly. An answering heat flared inside her.
She whimpered, whispered his name.
And then, without warning, the crest of her emotions broke. Tears pricked her eyes, and she began to tremble, as the terror and the grief of the past three days crashed in on her.
He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Are those tears for me?”
She sniffed, nodded, rested her hand against the reassuring rhythm of his heartbeat. “I thought you... Oh, God, I thought...”
His gaze drifted to the burn on her cheek, and he touched it lightly with his fingers.
“I’m fine, love. A few scratches and bruises. But let me take care of that burn.”
She brushed the back of her hand over the wound, turning her face away from him. “It’s no’ bad.”
He ran his thumb across the curve of her lower lip, mimicked her brogue and the words she’d spoken to him only yesterday. “I’ll be the one decidin’ that. Go sit in the shade, or the sun will burn that pretty pale skin of yours.”
She watched as he quickly tended the mares, unable to take her eyes off him for fear this was only a dream and she would wake to find herself alone in her grief. From the lines on his face, she could tell he was exhausted. He must have ridden all night to find her, pushing both himself and the mares to their limit.
But he was alive.
Once the mares were settled and his saddlebags safely stowed, he sat beside her.
“Let me wash your burn. Then I’ll put some of my salve on it.” He dipped a cloth in the cool water, squeezed it, gently cleaned her cheek. “It’s not bad. It ought to heal well. Flying cinders?”
She nodded, met his gaze. “I thought you were dead.”
He dabbed salve gently onto the small burn mark. “I planned to follow you, but in the time it took to fetch my saddlebags, I’d been cut off. I was forced farther to the west and took shelter in a lake until the fire passed. Then I followed a creek until it came to the Ohio.”
“If you had been behind me, you’d have been killed. The fire caught up with us.” She shuddered at the memory. “The trees—they seemed to scream.”
He set aside the salve, pulled her against his chest, held her. “It’s over now. We’re alive, and that’s what matters.”
She allowed herself to sink against him, savored the feel of him, his scent, his strength. Suddenly she was so very tired. “What are we goin’ to do now?”
He stroked her hair, pressed his lips to her temple. “First, we’re going to get some sleep. Oh, don’t worry. The horses will warn us if anyone approaches. Then I’m going to find us a nice, fat rabbit for dinner. Tomorrow morning we make for Fort Pitt and from there on to Paxton.”
Chapter 14
Bethie reined in her mare, weary with pain and fatigue. She adjusted Isabelle’s weight in the sling she had made from her shawl, tried to keep her mind off the ache in her shoulders and the chafed, raw skin of her inner thighs. Nicholas had given her his last remaining shirt to protect her skin from insects and the burning rays of the sun, but he had no spare breeches to protect her bare legs nor shoes or moccasins for her feet.
Ahead of her, Nicholas dismounted, knelt down, studied the ground for tracks, his brow furrowed in concentration, his dark hair tied back with a thong. The wilderness was his world, she realized. Here he seemed at ease. He saw things she didn’t see, heard things she couldn’t hear, exuded confidence when she felt only hesitation, fear. He showed no signs of the exhaustion that plagued her, but leapt agilely up onto the stallion’s back, urged it forward.
She gritted her teeth, bit back a groan as Rosa followed, the animal’s stride causing Bethie’s unprotected thighs to rub against the leather of Nicholas’s saddle. He had adjusted it to fit the mares, given it to Bethie to use, sure it would make the journey safer for her and the baby. But she had little experience riding and had never sat astride. If the insides of her thighs were not blistered and bloody, they certainly felt that way.
Hadn’t Nicholas warned her it would be hard? Aye, he had. And so much of the responsibility of this journey rested on his shoulders. It was he who protected them, found them food, searched for the safest paths. She wouldn’t add to his burdens by complaining.
Fortunately, both mares had accepted Zeus’s dominance and followed docilely wherever the stallion led, so Bethie had no worries when it came to controlling her mount. Nicholas hadn’t even bothered to tie Rona to Bethie’s saddle, but had let her wander free, sure that she would stay close behind them.
They’d been riding since shortly after dawn, following the river as it wound its way slowly to the northeast then dropped sharply to the southeast. Nicholas had kept them hidden in the cover of the forest, beneath a canopy of beech, maple, and oak. Bethie could not see the sun, but she knew it must be near sunset. Surely that meant they would stop soon.
In the sling, Belle began to whimper. Though the sling freed Bethie’s hands for riding and made it easy for her to nurse without stopping, it didn’t prevent them from having to dismount whenever the moss lining in Belle’s diaper cloth needed to be changed.
Bethie held her daughter close, whispered. “Shhh, sweet. We cannae stop just yet.”
But Belle would not be comforted. She began to kick and cry.
