With no weapon within reach, Cassidy frantically pulled back her arm and struck hard at whatever was holding on to her with her elbow. Her only hope was to use the element of surprise to drive off whatever creature had ensnared her.
“Ow! Damn it, Cassidy, I should have my head examined for not letting you drown instead of trying to save you,” the deep voice behind her grumbled.
She could feel the words as they rumbled out because the man behind her had such a tight hold on her; his chest was pressed up against her back closer than the label on a jar of jam.
“Laredo?” she cried, absolutely astonished even as she struggled to keep the very last ounce of energy from seeping out of her body. Confusion vibrated through her. “What the hell are you trying to do?”
“I thought that was rather obvious,” he bit off coldly, both his breath and his words grazing the back of her head. “I’m trying to save you from drowning in this damn flash flood.” Before she could offer any sort of a protest, he turned the tables on her. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
She had a death grip on the baby’s tub, which in turn kept the baby from being swept away by the river. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she challenged angrily.
“Proving me wrong,” he answered, still keeping one arm firmly secured around her torso as he continued to slowly, powerfully, make his way back to the bank.
“Okay, I’m waiting,” Cassidy retorted weakly, mentally bracing herself.
Whatever was coming was not going to be flattering. She knew him too well to expect anything else. She also knew him well enough to know he was bound to save her because of the same ingrained sense of honor they all shared.
“Why are you wrong?” she gasped when he didn’t say anything.
“Because you can still find new ways to mess up, just when I thought you’d exhausted all the available possibilities.”
Anger appeared out of nowhere, giving her an unexpected surge of energy. She knew it wouldn’t last, so she talked quickly.
“There was a baby in the river. What was I supposed to do?” she demanded weakly. “Wave at it?”
“No, but drowning with it wasn’t exactly going to help anything,” Will snapped as he finally managed to reach the riverbank with both of them in tow.
The baby was still crying. It was loud enough to almost drown out the sound of their voices.
“I wasn’t drowning,” she informed him.
She meant to snap the answer at him, but all she could manage was an indignant gasp. Her last surge of energy was all but gone. But he had a way of making her so angry, she still felt compelled to argue.
“I had everything under control. I didn’t need your help.”
Exhausted himself from fighting against the current, Will fell back against the bank. It was still raining, but at this point, he was hardly aware of it.
“Right.” The single word mocked her.
She would have peppered him with biting rhetoric if she only had the energy. As it was, taking in a full breath was about all she could manage. She couldn’t remember ever being this exhausted.
The moment she had at least an ounce of extra energy to spare, she would direct it toward the baby whose cries had turned into subdued whimpers—and that, in reality, worried her more than the cries did.
So, for the moment, all she could say in response to Will as they both lay on the bank, getting wetter and silently grateful that neither one of them would become a statistic today in this latest battle with Mother Nature, was, “Thanks for the thought, though.”
“Any time,” he murmured.
In the distance, as the rain began to swiftly retreat, he could have sworn that he heard a horse whinnying.
Or maybe it was a colt.
His mouth curved ever so slightly.
Britches was safe after all.
Cassidy hated to admit it, even if it was just to herself, but there was no getting away from it. Laredo had a great smile that warmed up a cold room and could easily set even the coolest heart on fire, at least momentarily. It was exactly for this reason why she would never even allow him to suspect that she felt this way.
Ever since she could remember, Will Laredo attracted the female of the species as if they were thirsty jackrabbits and he was the only watering hole for more than two hundred miles. Cody and Cole—and even Connor on occasion—seemed to think that was one of Laredo’s attributes. She, on the other hand, viewed it in an entirely different light.
It just gave the man an even bigger head than he already had.
When she saw the corner of his mouth curve just now as they both lay on the bank, gasping for breath, all these other thoughts came crowding into her head. Like how this resembled the aftermath of a marathon lovemaking session with the two of them lying so close together, breathless and grateful.
She was delirious, she angrily upbraided herself.
Cassidy squelched her thoughts. She was exhausted and consequently—although she would have rather died right here on the spot than admit it—vulnerable. This was definitely not the time to have thoughts like that marching through her brain.
People did stupid things when they felt vulnerable—even her. Stupid things that would go on to haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Well, not her.
“What are you smiling about?” she demanded breathlessly, expecting him to say something about getting to play the superhero to her damsel in distress—or something equally irritating.
She braced herself to lash out and put him in his place.
But Laredo surprised her by saying, “Britches made it.”
Britches? Her eyes narrowed into probing slits. Right now, the baby they had saved was quiet, and she was beyond grateful for that.
Was Laredo referring to the baby?
“Is that some kind of a nickname?” she challenged.
Was this yet another way to talk down to her? Even so, she had to admit that she was glad Laredo had showed up when he did. Despite her defensive words to the contrary, she really wasn’t 100 percent convinced that she would have been able to make it back to the bank with the baby without Laredo’s help.
But if she even hinted at that, he would never let her live it down.
“No, it’s a name,” Will told her mildly, “for my colt.”
“Your colt?” she repeated.
Was he talking about his father’s old gun? As she recalled, Jake Laredo had kept an old Colt .45 that he claimed had belonged to his great-great-grandfather, handed down to him by Stephen Austin, the man who’d founded the Texas Rangers. There was more to the story, but she’d always pretended to be disinterested whenever he mentioned it. In her opinion, Laredo’s head was big enough. She didn’t need to add to it by acting as if she cared about anything he had to say.
“A colt’s a male horse under the age of four,” he told her patiently.
Some of her energy had to be returning because she could feel her back going up. Heroic endeavors or not, Laredo was talking down to her again, Cassidy thought, annoyed.
“I know what a colt is,” she snapped, or thought she did. Afraid of scaring the baby again, she lowered her voice. “I just didn’t know you had one.”
“It’s