“Not so fast. Out here on the trail we sleep in our clothes.”
“You may do just that, sir. I, however, will not.”
Before she could slip free one more button, he yanked the blanket out of Fernanda’s upraised hands and tossed it onto the bed of pine needles behind him.
“You hard of hearing? I said out here—”
“I heard you perfectly well. The question is, did you hear me?” She couldn’t continue undressing until he turned away. Caroline pressed her lips together and waited.
“Button yourself back up, lady. You’re gonna sleep fully clothed.”
“I—I cannot.” She would not let him see how uncertain she felt about sleeping out in the open. Next to a man. Most of all, she could not confess that her stiff denim jeans chafed the inside of her thighs, despite the liniment Fernanda had rubbed on earlier. Or that her sunburned neck smarted under her shirt collar. She needed to be free of anything that rubbed her skin.
“Like hell,” he muttered. The next thing she knew he had yanked her up like a sack of meal and dumped her onto the blanket closest to the fire pit.
“Ouch!”
He knelt next to her. “I’ll take off your boots so you won’t have to stretch. Give me your foot.” He turned his back, straddled her leg and began pulling off the leather boots.
How humiliating! With her foot in his control she could not wriggle away from him. Oh, she felt so out of place in the West. So incompetent. She hated not knowing how to do something as simple as taking off her own boots.
But the relief she felt when her boot came off overcame her urge to complain. Bliss! She flexed her toes and closed her eyes with pleasure.
“I think my boots are too small,” she said. “My heels are rubbed raw.”
“Not too small,” he countered. “They’re too big. That’s why they rub.” He took her foot in both hands and stripped off her sock.
“Blisters,” he muttered. “Hot damn.”
“Well it isn’t my fault,” she blurted out. “You were the one who insisted on horses. And boots.”
“Yeah, I did. Stop complaining. You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Well!” She had never met a man so bad tempered and prone to give orders. She’d bet he’d been at least a colonel in the Rebel army. Maybe even a general.
“Fernanda,” he said over his shoulder to her companion. “You have an extra pair of socks with you?”
“Si. I have extra.” She rummaged in the small canvas bag he had allowed them and pulled out another bulky pair of boy’s socks.
“Your boots fit okay, señora?” he asked.
“Sí.” To demonstrate Fernanda executed a few dance steps, snapping her fingers over her head. “Fine boots, señor. Gracias.”
Caroline’s mouth fell open. She had never, ever seen Fernanda dance. Or even walk fast. Even in Texas, when Mama had hired the Mexican woman as a nurse, she had been the epitome of decorum. What had come over her?
That man, Rivera, had come over her, that’s what. Caroline sensed some unspoken connection between Rivera and Fernanda, but she could not imagine what it was. He was at least ten years Fernanda’s junior, and unless he preferred older women...
How reprehensible! The man was surely taking advantage of her friend.
She tried to yank her foot away, but his big hands held her fast. He massaged her toes, then her arch, and finally drew on the extra sock. Then he picked up her other foot and pulled off the leather boot.
“Tomorrow I’ll help you get your boots back on,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“There is absolutely no need,” she protested. “I have been capable of dressing myself since I was three years old.”
“Did you wear Western boots when you were three years old?”
She flinched. “Certainly not. I wore dresses, like any proper young girl.”
Without a word he dropped her foot, folded the boot tops over and slapped them down next to her saddle. “Good night, Miss MacFarlane. Use your boots for a pillow.”
“Good night? How am I supposed to sleep with just one blanket and a smelly pair of boots?”
He towered over her, then squatted on his haunches down to her level. “You sleep any way you like, Miss MacFarlane. You roll yourself up in the blanket, like a pancake. Personally, I prefer using my saddle as a pillow, but you suit yourself.”
She glared up at him. “I most certainly will not roll myself—”
He said nothing, just straightened to his full height and looked down at her. His eyes did strange things to her equilibrium.
“What if I get cold during the night?”
“You won’t. It’s the middle of the summer. Stays hot all night.”
“Oh.” Again she stuffed down the unwelcome feeling of incompetence. She should have deduced that about the weather.
“Do not worry, mi corazón, you will be close to the fire.”
Caroline bit her lip, hunkered down on the blanket, and pulled both corners up around her. Roll over like a pancake? How did one accomplish that?
She rolled to her left and felt the muscles in her back clench. She reversed direction, but the blanket wouldn’t cover her completely.
All at once the blanket was yanked out from under her and a hand settled on her backside. “Like this.” He tucked one edge under her back and rolled her over twice. The blanket snugged up tight around her body.
“Just like a tortilla,” Fernanda chortled. “Mi hija, pretend you are the molé sauce.”
In the next moment he slid his palm under her neck and stuffed her folded boots underneath her head. She clamped her jaw tight shut and watched Fernanda toe off her boots and roll herself up in her own blanket.
Rivera did the same. She noticed he had positioned both herself and Fernanda next to the fire; he slept on the outside.
Well, at least that was gentlemanly.
* * *
Hawk listened to the quiet breathing of the two women and hoped he’d dropped enough dry wood into the fire pit to last the night. Not that they’d need the warmth, but the flames would keep away predators. He drew in a careful breath. Coyotes, maybe. Not men.
He’d scouted the area around the camp and found no tracks but Red’s and those of the two mares. Maybe Fernanda was wrong about someone trying to kill Miss MacFarlane.
He closed his eyes and tried not to remember how Caroline MacFarlane looked with her shirt half-unbuttoned. A song sparrow twittered among the branches of a nearby alder. Funny how a bird’s singing could fill a man full of questions about his life. He wondered if his deathbed reflections about the decisions he’d made in his life would make it all clear someday. Then he snorted. He’d save his deathbed confession for when the time came.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the fat silver globe of a moon floating above the trees. Suddenly something startled the bird into silence, and the hair on his neck rose. He hadn’t heard a horse. Hadn’t heard a single footstep. Very slowly he sat up and reached for his rifle.
A shadow glided behind a thick pine trunk and he thumbed back the hammer. What would a man on foot be doing twenty miles from the nearest town? Maybe a renegade