Drawn by something in her tone, something beneath the coldness, Rafe turned to look at her, seeking to understand the sound of unresolved pain. But her attention had returned to the fire, her head down, her face half-hidden by the gleaming curtain of her hair. The sky at her back etched the rim of the canyon in vermilion. A color so vivid the flames she found mesmerizing paled and faded, reminding that darkness followed light. Then would come the cold.
The sun rode the rim, sending shafts of light glancing over stone. The stream splashed and burbled, beckoning in a misty rainbow. And Valentina O’Hara stared into the fire.
He watched her, so still, so silent, wondering, as before, how she’d come to be one of Simon’s Marauders. Vowing, once more, that one day he would know, he followed the path that beckoned.
Their meal was finished. Plates and pans had been scrubbed with sand, rinsed in the stream and put away. Only the coffeepot steamed over the fire, a fragrant vapor blending with the lingering scent of bacon and beans. Range fare, the cowboy’s lot. Quick, no-nonsense, plentiful and filling.
The fire burned down, sending little spurts of flame flicking from white-hot embers. Rafe would add more wood later. Large, green logs to smolder, then burn, then smolder again through the night.
Beyond the circle of their camp the canyon was silent. Its stillness broken only now and again by the stealthy scuttle of nocturnal creatures. A summer moon sailed the sky. A perfect golden globe with a great rough face seeming so near one need only lift a hand to touch it. Leaves of the aspen shivered and quaked in the riffling breeze. Their green and gold dress, a harbinger of autumn, made more golden by the light of the moon.
A log crumbled into ash. A display of sparks and flame painted fleeting silhouettes and shadows over the tumble of stones marking the boundary of their camp. In that transient moment, Valentina’s image was sketched in red rock, somber and still. As silent as the night.
Like the night, her silence was brooding, not sullen. Pensive, not reproving. She had accepted him as another of the inescapable burdens of this brief measure of her life. As one who traversed this part of the world must accept the threat of rock slide, or rattlesnake, and cactus spine. And in the pensive brooding lurked the curious air of sadness he’d sensed beneath the arrogant assurance.
With his gloved hand, he lifted the pot from the grill, judging from the heft of it that only one cup remained. One thick, thoroughly boiled, concentrated cup. Holding the pot poised over the fire, he spoke softly. “More?”
Responding vaguely, she looked at him through eyes blinded by her thoughts, not by fire.
“More coffee?” he offered again. “One cup left.”
Her brows arched down in concentration, as if she couldn’t draw her mind from its preoccupation. “One?”
“If you dare.” A deliberate move splashed liquid against tin in a hollow rattle and a billow of bitter steam. “The devil’s own brew, by now.”
“Coffee?”
“If you wish to call it that.”
She moved her head in refusal. “No, thanks.”
Rafe smiled, but only with his lips, as he watched her. “Wise choice.”
“I haven’t always made them.”
Hesitating in the act of rising, Rafe knelt on one knee. “A common human failing.”
“To those for whom failure is an option.” Her gaze settled again on the fire, avoiding his.
Rafe’s look swept over her, his scrutiny long and hard. “But not an option for you.”
Valentina nodded her agreement.
“And not this time.”
She was unresponsive for so long he thought she wouldn’t answer. When she did, it was no more than a word, born on a breath slowly exhaled. “No.”
Climbing to his feet, he waited for more. When there was nothing, he moved to the stream to rinse the pot, readying it for the morning and the last time. The next night’s camp would be cold and dry, after a longer day on a trail even more grueling. Over the simple fare of dinner, she’d given this terse explanation for a short, acclimatizing first day. And in her tone there had been no hint of mercy for man or beast, or woman, in the trek ahead.
Mercy was the last thing Rafe expected, and far from his thoughts when he knelt by the stream. As he rinsed away the dregs, fallen leaves drifted by in the froth of icy water, brilliant and beautiful in the light of the moon. But he had no time for beauty as he lifted his eyes to the mountains.
Courtney was there, trapped in a squalid shack with a madman.
So far away. So far yet to go. So little time.
And only one hope.
Valentina.
She was laying out her bedroll when he returned from the stream. In base camp he’d noted an orderliness about her, with a place for everything, and everything in its place. He saw it now, even in the wilderness. Perhaps especially in the wilderness.
He wondered, not for the first time, how much of it was her nature, how much her training. One schooled by the commander of The Black Watch would never be caught off guard, never unprepared.
“Turning in?” A rhetorical question, given the obvious, but he made no apology as he tended the fire.
“We’ll be making an early start in the morning. At first light.” She looked up from her chore. “If you’re determined to go on.”
“I’ll be ready. First light.”
In the blink of an eye something changed in a subtle altering of her expression. He thought at first it was a small nuance of relief, but when she turned briskly back to making her bed, he knew he was mistaken. He’d seen only the changing of light, a softening of her features created by the flattering glow of the fire.
“Pity,” he muttered, not certain why, then covered the sound with his own preparations for the night. He worked first with the fire, making it ready for the duration. Next was his bedroll, spread across from hers by the pit. And, as was his nature, there was a place for everything. A panther from the bayous would no more be caught unprepared or unguarded than one of The Black Watch. While he worked, according to his nature and by habit, his thoughts were of Valentina.
She’d come, accepting the burden of the impossible. There would have been no other choice for her had she been given one. But there were others who had done the same with more humanity.
Cold. With quick glancing looks, he watched her, judging her as she moved with meticulous care, emotionally uninvolved, never concerned that a child was out there. A tiny girl, frightened and in danger, was business to her. An assignment, a job to be done, no more, no less. He questioned neither her ability nor her will to succeed. Only her compassion.
“An assignment, that’s all that matters. Not that it’s a child.” Anger surged black and corrosive as he slammed the pot on a stone by the fire. “Not that it’s Courtney.”
For all he knew he could have been shouting. But when he found her looking at him, a puzzled look on her face, he knew his furious words had been an unintelligible growl. She hadn’t heard, hadn’t understood.
“It’s nothing,” he snapped with strained patience when she continued to stare. Surging to his feet, needing to distance himself from her, with a brusque gesture he parried her concern. “Go on with what you were doing. I’ve a few things to see to before I bed down El Mirlo and then myself.”
“The horse is fine.” Her eyes were narrowed, her gaze still questioning. “I saw to him and Black Jack a bit ago.”
“The