He caught his breath as a wayward thought struck home. Maybe Caroline MacFarlane wasn’t like most women.
Well, hell. He mounted and lifted the reins. “Walk the horses single file. Señora Sobrano, you bring up the rear.”
“Si, Señor Hawk.” The smile in her voice told him something he hadn’t thought of before. Fernanda Sobrano might be Caroline’s valued companion, but she didn’t put up with the lady’s airs. Or her temper. All at once, the trek to Gillette Springs looked almost enjoyable. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about getting bushwhacked. Nobody would expect them to ride the forty miles to Gillette Springs when a stagecoach was available.
They headed south. He hadn’t gone five steps before Miss High and Mighty’s voice rose in accusation. “Sheriff, we are headed in the wrong direction. Gillette Springs is north of Smoke River, is it not?”
“It is. We’re taking a roundabout route, just in case anybody’s watching.”
That shut her up. He especially liked Fernanda’s half-suppressed snort of laughter.
He led them south for a mile, then circled back onto the old river road and eventually headed north on a little-used trail he’d found on an afternoon spent fishing.
The women were quiet for the first couple of hours, and when they stopped to water the horses at a spring, Hawk studied them. Fernanda grinned at him, dismounted and scooped water up in her cupped hands. Caroline tried it but soon gave up.
Hawk thrust his canteen at her. “Here.”
She took it without a murmur, tipped the metal container to her lips and gulped three big swallows. “Tastes awful, like metal,” she complained.
“It is metal. It’s my old army canteen.”
“Oh? Which army, Union or Rebel?”
“I’m a Texan,” he said, his voice tight. “Ought to be obvious.”
“Si, is obvious,” Fernanda said from the other side of the spring. “Yankee soldiers not polite like Señor Rivera.”
Caroline bristled. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Yankee manners.”
“No? Hija, your manners could use some improvement sometimes.”
Yankee Lady flounced back to her horse and scrambled ungracefully into the saddle. Hawk noticed she was walking a bit stiffly. By sundown she’d be saddle-sore and even more bad tempered. He expelled a long breath. Good thing he’d brought plenty of whiskey.
They stopped before dark in a thick copse of beech and sugar pines. “We stay here?” Fernanda asked.
“Yeah. Gillette Springs is forty miles from Smoke River. We’re almost halfway.” He watched the Mexican woman slide easily off her mount. Caroline sat frozen in the saddle, her head drooping.
Hawk didn’t ask if she needed help dismounting; he just walked over, snaked his hands around her waist and pulled her off the horse. She staggered, then sagged toward him. He caught her shoulders to keep her upright, but her legs wouldn’t support her.
“Fernanda, get a blanket from behind my saddle and spread it over there.” He tipped his head toward a patch of thick pine needles.
“Si, señor.”
“There’s some liniment in my saddlebag. Bring that, too.”
The older woman nodded. When she’d spread out the blanket, Hawk scooped Caroline up in his arms.
“Put me down this instant,” she cried.
He gritted his teeth. “Unless you want to crawl to that blanket, just shut up.” He knelt and rolled her onto the square of Navaho wool, then sat back on his heels.
“Listen, Miss MacFarlane. I didn’t want to come along on this trip. I don’t want to be here now, soft-talking you into behaving like a civilized person. So unless you want to take your chances alone in the middle of this woods, shape the hell up!”
He waited for a response, then lowered his voice so only she could hear. “From now on, you say please and thank you and act like a lady. You get my meaning?”
She nodded and Hawk saw that tears glistened in her eyes. Well, damn. He rose quickly and tramped over to his horse. He couldn’t stand a woman’s tears.
Fernanda found the jar of liniment and held it up with a question in her eyes.
“Smear it on her backside,” he instructed. “And her thighs,” he added. To take his mind off Caroline’s anatomy, he busied himself unsaddling and feeding the horses, then dug a hole for the fire so it couldn’t be seen and started to unpack supper from his saddlebag.
It didn’t help one bit hearing Caroline’s responses to the Mexican woman’s ministrations with the liniment. “Oh, that feels so good. Do some more, here. And here.”
Hawk tried to close his mind off from her voice, but she moaned and sighed like a cat in heat. “Ah, yes, right there. Yes! Oh. Oh. More.”
He swore under his breath and walked away from camp. When he returned an hour later, Fernanda was grinding coffee beans. Caroline limped over with the coffeepot she’d filled at the stream. Hawk lifted it out of her hands so she wouldn’t have to bend over.
“Thank you,” she murmured. She wouldn’t look at him, but her voice sounded like she’d been crying. He caught his breath. Sure was glad she couldn’t see his face in the dark.
While they ate the simple supper of canned beans and tomatoes and hot coffee, he found himself watching her. She sat slumped against a boulder, her knees bent, obviously trying not to move much. He figured her back was aching in spite of the liniment.
What the hell was a delicate slip of an overcivilized woman like Caroline MacFarlane doing traipsing around the country making people mad enough to want her dead?
Tomorrow, he’d ask her. That is, if she was still speaking to him after today.
My lady very angry today. I think is because riding on horseback make her hurt. She is frightened, but she not admit. Señor Rivera say nothing, not even buenos días, until he drink three cups of the coffee I make extra strong. And I listen to my lady complain about everything, the blanket she sleep in, the boots, the biscuits he make for our supper, everything. She is mad, I think, because underneath she feel scared.
Caroline had never felt so miserable in her entire life, not even the hours spent in dusty stagecoaches rattling through the wilds of Oklahoma and Texas. She was hot and sticky and her derriere hurt as if she’d been bouncing for hours on a pincushion. A pincushion made of hard leather.
It was all the fault of that odious man, Rivera. He was bossy. Rude. And ill-mannered. No matter how admiringly Fernanda gazed at the tall sheriff, the man was nothing but a bully with a shiny silver badge.
With distaste she surveyed their sleeping arrangements for the night. A single blanket apiece and a saddle for a pillow? How primitive. Even the Indians slept in tents, did they not?
Fernanda had taken the tin plates and spoons to rinse off in the stream; when she returned Caroline would ask her to hold up a blanket so she could undress in what limited privacy she could manage. She wondered with a stab of unease whether she would be able to get her boots off without bending over.
Rivera strode off to hobble the horses and she seized her chance. “Fernanda, hold up one of those blankets to make a screen, would you?”
“But you don’t need—”
“Just do it,” she hissed. “Quickly! Before he gets back.”
Her companion sent her an odd look but dutifully unrolled a square of striped wool and held it aloft. Caroline