The Tender Stranger. Carolyn Davidson

all the godforsaken spots she could have come up with, she’d ended up on the side of a mountain west of Denver. How ironic.

      She laughed, a strained sound that made him wince.

      “Erin?” Quinn tasted her name, relishing the breathless sound of it. His gaze appreciated the look of her, his mind wondered at the unexpected appeal to his senses. He hadn’t looked for this attraction, and yet it could not be denied. She was the quarry, he the hunter; her capture the goal.

      Yet for the life of him, for whatever reason, he’d lost any incentive he had to cart her back to New York. For the first time in years he found himself willing to put his own needs and concerns on the back burner. All in the interests of a pregnant woman who had a past—but not much of a future, from what he could see.

      Erin moved quickly, rinsing the potatoes at the pump, then slicing them into a pan, ignoring the sound of his voice speaking her name. The last of the bacon was cut into small pieces, then dropped into the skillet to fry up. An onion, chopped with rapid slashes of her knife, joined the bacon and sizzled in the grease.

      “Erin? I have an idea. Why don’t you hear me out?” So quickly his thoughts had spun out of control. Watching her, listening to her, he’d already juggled his plans twice. Now Quinn was about to commit himself in a new measure, perhaps allow a time of grace in which to consider the woman.

      She stirred the bacon in the skillet, her back straight, only the proud tilt of her head making him aware that she listened to his words.

      “I’ll take you to town and help you get supplies, then bring you back here. That’ll give you a bit of space to maneuver, not having to do it on your own.”

      “You’ve already made that offer,” she said crisply.

      “But you never gave me an answer,” he reminded her.

      “Let me think about it.”

      He drained the coffee cup and rose, walking to the window. “It’s not going to let up much. I think we’re stuck inside for a while.”

      “Do you like rice pudding?”

      “My mother used to make it for a special treat when I was a boy,” he said, his memory of that time fresh in his mind as he spoke the words.

      “I’ve got a lot of milk and eggs to use up. We’ll have some for dinner.”

      “I hope the rain lets up in time for you to milk Daisy tonight. She won’t be happy if she has to wait till morning.”

      Erin turned from the stove. “I’11 have to go out there, rainy or not. 1 couldn’t do that to the poor thing. I can’t imagine anything more cruel.”

      Which was what he’d had in mind earlier, he reminded himself. Leaving the cow to fend for herself while he hustled her owner down the mountain and back to the big city. He traced a circle on the steamy glass of the window. It seemed that this issue was going to be more complicated than he’d thought at first.

      Even if he went through with his original plan, there would be no carrying her off from here without a bit more forethought involved. She wasn’t in any shape for him to instigate a battle. In fact, fighting with the girl was not what he had in mind. That image brought a sense of shame to the surface.

      If he were to follow his baser instincts, Quinn’s hands would touch more than her shoulders. His eyes would do more than take in the beauty of her profile, the soft, tempting fall of hair that caught shimmering highlights from the lantern.

      How he could so easily overlook the rounding evidence of her impending motherhood was beyond him. He’d never thought to find a woman in her condition so all-fired appealing. And yet she was. More so, in fact, than any other female he’d come across in years.

      If Ted Wentworth could only see him today, within arm’s reach of his quarry and unable to commit himself to her capture. Forty-eight hours ago, two short days past, he had been hot on her trail and ready to roll back to Denver, Erin Wentworth in hand.

      Quinn’s common sense told him he’d had no concept of a woman in Erin’s condition. He could no more sling her on a horse and head down the mountain than he could flap his arms and fly. There didn’t seem to be any way out of it. He’d have to let Ted Wentworth know what was going on, and then make plans to winter here. At least until Erin had the baby and they were both ready to travel.

      Would he be ready to earn money at her expense then? Or ever, for that matter?

      

      The rain let up just before dark. His clothes were as dry as they were going to get, Quinn decided. He hurried to put them on as soon as Erin left the house to go to the shed, wearing boots that came almost to her knees. They’d been a legacy of the old man who lived here before her, and although she scuffled along to keep them on, they served the purpose, she’d told him.

      His trousers were still damp, but usable, and his boots were hot on the inside, curling his toes with the storedup heat from the woodstove. He slapped his hat on with haste and headed out the door, dodging raindrops as he ran for the shelter.

      Erin had made a detour to the outhouse, and he met her halfway between the cabin and the shed. His hand took her arm and he held her steady as they trekked through the mud.

      The cow was making anxious noises when Quinn pushed the door open, and the horses nickered softly in greeting. The hens were settling in for the night and looked impatiently at the intruders as they entered.

      Quinn found the lantern and lit the wick. Erin had already settled herself to milking, obviously able to find the cow without benefit of light. He smiled as he watched her work, grinned as he listened to her softly crooning assurances to the pretty little Jersey.

      “For a city girl, you sure caught on fast to taking care of stock, didn’t you?”

      She laughed softly. “When it’s a matter of food, you learn or go hungry. I depend on the animals for transportation, eggs, and milk and butter. In turn, I feed and tend to them. Works out pretty well, I’d say.”

      “You got your list made up for the general store in town?”

      “Pretty much. Flour, sugar, lard and cornmeal are the heavy items. I can’t carry much canned goods, so I’m limited there. A farmer down below will be bringing up feed for my chickens. The young man at the store said he’d try to get up here during the bad months and bring supplies once in a while. I’ll shoot some game for myself.”

      “You? Shoot a deer? What would you do with it then?”

      She made an impatient noise. “Probably not a deer. Maybe rabbits. There are traps overhead in the cabin, too. One way or another, I’ll survive.”

      The thought of her setting a trap sickened him, the image of it closing on her fingers as she struggled to pry the cruel jaws open a harsh picture in his mind. He set it from his thoughts.

      “You know how to gut a rabbit?”

      “I’ll manage. I watched the cook clean chickens when I was a child. It can’t be much different with a rabbit.”

      His admiration for this fragile woman increased. She was not what he had expected while heading across the country with one goal in mind. And now, in one short day, she’d managed to turn his life in another direction.

      “Let’s plan on going down to town tomorrow,” Quinn told her. A door at the back of the shed provided a place to pitch the badly soiled wood chips from the stalls and he opened it wide. The pitchfork he found on the wall had a tine missing, but it would do for now, and he bent to with a will.

      “All right.” Her words were slow, as if she considered the matter even as she agreed to his plan.

      “You want to feed the chickens tonight?” he asked.

      “I’ll do it first thing in the morning. They’ve gone to roost already.” She leaned her forehead on the cow’s flank, almost as if she communicated somehow with the animal. A soft lowing met