Lynna Banning - High Country Hero

What was it she’d said? I like to know what’s beneath the surface before I plunge into something . She’d been scared of the river. Scared of the unknown. Well, I’ll be damned .

Now what?

He waited, up to his neck in the river.

She waited on the bank.

His knees were getting cold. “Want to turn your back while I get out?”

Her eyes flickered. “I’m a doctor, Mr. Lawson. There is nothing about the male body I haven’t seen before.”

Maybe. Had she ever seen an erection that tented a man’s trousers even when they were soaking wet? He didn’t think cadavers or ailing male patients could…

“Oh, very well,” she said at last. “Since you are shy.”

“Shy!” He swooshed to a standing position just in time to see her backside disappear into a gooseberry thicket.

Shy! He glanced down at the front of his jeans. “Sure, Doc. If you say so.” He had a hard time keeping a straight face.

To take his mind off the matter, he gathered a handful of pale green gooseberries and fed them to his horse. Slowly.

“Ready to ride?” he called when he thought he was under control.

“Quite ready.” She emerged from the thicket fully dressed, her red shirt buttoned up to her chin, her skirt flaring over her boots. Hell, she looked ready for church.

And here he stood, like a randy cowboy with a hard-on.

The downpour ceased abruptly, as if someone had suddenly turned off a spigot. She glanced skyward, stuck out her hand, palm up. “Oh, look, the rain has stopped. Now my undergarments will dry.”

Blazes, she didn’t even notice the bulge in his pants! He’d guess she wouldn’t understand it if she did see it. He rolled his eyes.

She mounted her horse and turned its rump toward him. Clipped to the saddle blanket with four wooden clothespins were her drawers and the lacy camisole.

Cord thought about that as he sloshed out of the river and caught his own mare. Underclothes flapping on the back of her horse. It would be hard not to look at them.

Okey-doke. Then he wouldn’t look.

He swung up into the saddle. Water squished out of his wet jeans, coursed down the animal’s hide and dripped off the stirrups. Every move he made reminded him he was sodden as a drowning rat.

And hard.

He’d keep his eyes on that funny-looking skirt she wore, and that plaid shirt she’d buttoned up tight like a prissy schoolmarm. He wouldn’t think for one second about the fact that she wore absolutely nothing underneath…

Lord-oh-Lord. It was going to be a long, long day.

She rode behind him, had done so ever since they left the Umpqua River three hours ago and headed east cross-country toward the Green Mountains, but it didn’t help. He kept thinking about her backside.

He tried reciting multiplication tables in his head. When he completed the twelves, he tried poetry. “This is the forest primeval…”

No good. His now-dry jeans rubbed his flesh the wrong way.

He’d try conversation, he decided. Anything to keep his thoughts from wandering where they had no business going. He twisted in the saddle and spoke over his shoulder. “How come you swim with your eyes closed?”

No answer. After a good dozen heartbeats, her voice floated to him. “Because it scares me.”

“But you did it. You looked pretty pleased with yourself after you got across.”

“I was pleased. Swimming across that river is a milestone for me.”

He chuckled. “Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon.”

She made a noise somewhere between a cough and a chortle. “How would you know about the Rubicon?”

“I read about it.”

“In Latin, I suppose.” Her tone indicated disbelief.

“Yeah. Zack Beeler taught me. His mama was a schoolteacher back in Rhode Island. Zack knew more about Latin than making biscuits.”

She didn’t respond.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Let’s just say I am…skeptical.”

“Try me.”

“All right, if you insist. Caveat viator .”

“Let the traveler beware,” he translated instantly. “ Carpe diem ,” he tossed back.

“Seize the day,” she said in a triumphant voice. “So there!” He could tell she was smiling. He wished he could see her face; it lit up when she smiled.

He decided to push his advantage. “ Quam minimum credula postero ? ”

“Trust…um, trust…”

“Trust tomorrow as little as possible,” he finished for her. “I rest my case.”

A long, long silence followed. Cord concentrated on the faint trail ahead of him, noted the angle of the sun, the various shades of green in the wooded area to his right. Pretty country. No settlers. Not even a stage stop out here in the middle of nowhere. It suited him just fine.

When he was tracking someone, he rode through towns, talked to ranchers, stopped at army posts and Indian camps. After a capture he preferred to be alone. Raised by four men on the run, he’d never been comfortable around civilized people. The first Latin word he ever learned was solus . Solitary.

Ah, what the hell. People were no damn good anyway.

Except for her, maybe. Most folks pointed fingers, spat out insults, drew sidearms on a fellow for no cause but suspicion or being “different.”

She was an exception. She had the gumption to ride with him, and that said quite a lot about her. She was dedicated to her profession.

She was…

Don’t think about it, Cord. Don’t think about those underclothes, either . Dry by now. Hanging out in plain sight getting bleached by the sun. Probably warm to the touch. She’d slide those drawers up her legs, over her thighs, around her—

“Seven times seven is forty-nine,” he said aloud. “‘The murmuring pines and the hemlocks…’”

Forget Longfellow. “‘I knew a maiden, fair to see…’” He swallowed and dredged up some more Latin from his memory. “ Sic transit gloria mundi .”

Oh, yeah? The glory of the world wasn’t passing; it was riding not twenty paces behind him.

“Seven times eight…”

Sage heard him muttering ahead of her, a low rumble that rose and fell like the humming of bees. She couldn’t hear distinct words, but maybe that was just as well. What would a man like Cord Lawson, a bounty hunter who spoke Latin of all things, have on his mind?

As she thought about it, the niggle of interest turned into a nagging curiosity. She had always hungered to know what lay beneath the surface of things that were more complex than met the eye; it didn’t matter if it was a swollen area of skin on the chest or stomach of a patient, a river, even a whiskery man who swam the dirt out of his laundry. She’d like to peel him open and peer inside.

She watched his bare back moving with the horse. He must ride shirtless more often than not, she decided. His skin was smooth and very, very tan, so dark it resembled the rich mahogany of her mother’s piano. His ear-length black hair had dried in the breeze, and now the ends wanted to curl up. It made him seem young. Even looking into a mirror he wouldn’t see how boyish and untamed those little uncorraled strands appeared.

She liked that. It was as if she could see part of him that he himself didn’t know existed.

She studied his shoulders, tried to estimate their breadth, then let her gaze drift down his spine to where the subtly moving bones of his back disappeared under the leather belt at his waist. There wasn’t an ounce of extra fat on him. Extra anything, really; his torso looked as if it was carved out of dark clay and rubbed smooth with knowing hands.

An odd feeling lodged in her lower belly, as if she had gulped hot chocolate on a winter afternoon. The rich, warm sensation came as a surprise, and she felt it again when he turned to look at her.