“You shouldn’t have to,” she said softly.
Her fingers moved gently over the top of his hand as though she wanted to console him in some way. But Quint could have told her that he didn’t need that sort of comforting from her. He wanted her lips fastened to his, her body crushed beneath him. The thought of making love to this woman was beginning to consume him and make everything else seem very unimportant. That couldn’t be healthy. But he’d already gone past the point of stopping it.
He sighed. “Since Holly, I’ve met a few women who thought they could change me. In a way, I guess I’ve had the same sort of problem that you had with your ex. Most of the women I’ve dated seemed to equate Cantrell money with easy living. But that’s not what I’m about, Maura.”
“No,” she said gently. “I can see you’re not that sort of man.”
He believed her and that in itself was scary. He wasn’t expecting this woman to be able to read him, empathize with him. He’d looked for her to be cut from the same cloth as the rest that had come and gone in his life. The fact that she was so different knocked him totally off guard.
Clearing his throat, he tugged on her hand. “Well, time is getting on, we’d better mount up,” he told her.
With his hand beneath her elbow, he helped her across the rocky ground and over to where the horses stood tethered in the shade. After a few minutes of untying reins and tightening girths, they were ready to mount up and Quint automatically moved behind Maura to assist her into the saddle.
He was about to reach for a hold on her waist when she suddenly turned to face him. And as he found his face close to hers, he felt his heart thudding hard and fast. She was looking at him with eyes as soft as a summer night.
“I just wanted to thank you, Quint. For listening to my troubles. I used to be terribly embarrassed for anyone to know that Gilbert chased after other women.” Her long lashes fluttered demurely downward to hide her green eyes. “For a long time I thought—well, that I must be lacking as a woman. Now I’m beginning to believe that he was the one who was lacking something. Not me.”
Quint couldn’t stop himself from groaning as his hands settled on her shoulders. “Oh, Maura, you’re lovely and sexy and I want to kiss you. Very much.”
Maura didn’t stop to think or even speak. She simply closed her eyes and leaned into him. And when his lips came hungrily down on hers, something inside her melted like a sand castle beneath a wash of tide. He swept her away, made her forget, made her long for all the things she’d been trying to forget.
Expecting the kiss to turn as torrid as it had the other night when he’d visited Apache Wells, Maura was surprised when he soon lifted his head and gave her a crooked grin.
“We’d better mount up this time,” he said huskily. “Before I forget where we are.”
Unable to do much more than nod, Maura turned to Pearl and, with Quint’s help, climbed into the saddle. But as the two of them rode out of the quiet arroyo, all she could think about was being in his arms.
Chillicothe consisted of five buildings grouped together in one small area and split by a dimly rutted road that, back in the town’s heyday, had probably been considered the main street. These days, tall sage and prickly pear had taken over most of the roadway.
As Quint and Maura rode through the ghostly village, she looked around with keen interest.
“This is very neat—having an old mining settlement on your property,” she said.
He shrugged. “It can also be a nuisance. Gramps and I are often approached about opening the place up to tourists. Some even suggest rebuilding it into a wild west town and charging admission. Can you imagine what a circus that would cause around here?”
“I wouldn’t like it,” she admitted. “What does Abe think?”
“Thank God he agrees with me on that issue. This little town is just like a grave site. It shouldn’t be trampled on by a bunch of strangers.”
Shaded by several tall cottonwood trees, the largest building of the lot had once been a company store and directly across from it, the swinging doors of an old saloon had long ago fallen from their hinges and landed on the planked porch. Down the street three more buildings were partially standing, one of which appeared to have been a blacksmith shop. Part of a forge was visible in the open doorway.
“We’ll come back in a few minutes for a closer look and have lunch,” he told her. “Right now let’s ride on to the mine. It’s just a short distance from here.”
“Fine,” she agreed.
After leaving the remnants of Chillicothe, they rode northwest for another quarter of a mile. Here the landscape changed to low mountains covered with short grass, a sprinkling of orange and purple wildflowers and a few pines.
When they reached a small creek trickling with crystal clear water, Quint said, “Back in the eighteen hundreds the miners first found gold panning this little creek. But it was a long time afterward before they began to dig for it.”
Bemused, Maura looked down at the stream. “I wonder if any nuggets are still around?”
“You’re welcome to pan,” he teased.
Laughing, she looked over at him. “No thanks. I might get the fever and then I’d have to set up camp out here.”
The grin slowly faded from his face. “That might not be a bad thing. Then I wouldn’t have to make excuses to see you.”
Since their stop at the arroyo, something had changed between them, Maura thought. She didn’t know exactly what it was or what had brought it about. But with every beat of her heart she could feel herself drawing closer and closer to this man. With every breath she took, the protective wall she’d built around her was crumbling away into useless rubble.
“You mean showing me Chillicothe and the mine was just an excuse to see me?” she asked.
His low chuckle was both sensual and suggestive and Maura’s cheeks burned with self-conscious heat. In her younger days, she’d never had trouble attracting the opposite sex and even since her divorce from Gilbert, she’d been asked on dates by a few men. But she could safely say none of them had been half as masculine or sexy as Quint. And just the idea that a man like this young rancher wanted her company rattled her senses.
“No. I honestly wanted you to see them,” he admitted with a grin. “Having your company is a nice addition.” He motioned for her to follow him across the creek. “Come on. The mine is just around this next hill.”
Maura was surprised when the entrance to the Golden Spur finally came into view. From all the talk that Abe had been doing about the mine, she’d expected something far more grand than a small hole in the side of the mountain.
Like the buildings in the nearby ghost town, the lumber used to frame the entrance had now weathered to little more than gray pieces of wood. In some places the nails had rusted completely away and the boards looked as though a strong puff of wind would cause them to collapse. But above the dark entrance, a large piece of tin with the name of the mine was still erect and dark enough to read.
After they dismounted and tethered their horses on an old broken wheel that someone had discarded, they walked near enough to the entrance to peer inside.
“So this is what has Abe all stirred up,” Maura said with amazement. “It doesn’t look like much from here.”
“It probably isn’t. As far as I know no one has been inside to do any type of work since back in the 1950s. At that time the miners weren’t pulling enough gold out to warrant keeping the thing open. But for some reason Gramps believes there are more veins of gold ore to be found