Caine's Reckoning. Sarah McCarty

for so poorly that he couldn’t exert himself without fighting for breath. Her father had had one of the guides put it out of its misery. There was no mercy for the weak in this territory.

      “Damn. Which one?”

      “The sorrel. It’s a shame, too. He’s got a nice gait on him and a real pleasant how-de-do.”

      Caine patted her thigh almost absentmindedly and ducked under the paint’s neck before taking her other foot into that inexorable grip and dousing it with more of the icy water. “You like him.”

      It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of fact. Sam shrugged. “Just hate to see good horseflesh abused.”

      Caine ran his finger down the center of her right foot in an ethereal caress, sending strange tingles upward and outward. She couldn’t help her shiver. She didn’t know if the quirk of his lips was for her reaction or Sam’s.

      “I don’t suppose it would hurt to bring him along. As long as we don’t run into trouble, he should be fine.”

      Sam nodded. “That was my thought.” He jerked his head in the direction of the other women. “Suppose I’d better go help Tracker get that lot saddled up.”

      He sounded like he’d rather be nibbled to death by ducks. Not the reaction Mavis and her friends were used to getting from men.

      “Better you than me.”

      Desi looked down as Caine probed the edges of the deep cut near her arch. “You’re not going to put the horse down?”

      She couldn’t see his face for the brim of his hat, but his attention was clearly more on her foot than her words. “Not without need.”

      She would have thought the fact the horse couldn’t pull his weight constituted need. Fleeting pressure on her ankle was her only warning before he worked the ointment into the wound. It hurt nearly as much as getting the injury in the first place. Her exclamation was involuntary. His response disconcerting.

      “Easy, baby.” The stroke of his hand on her calf was both soothing and absurdly comforting. She yanked back, but she couldn’t break his hold. Caine’s palm curved around her calf. He massaged her leg while standing so close the heat from his body warmed her cold skin. The pain eased.

      At her terse “Thank you,” he touched her tightly curled toes in a way she could only describe as tender. Except this was not a tender man. She relaxed her foot, watching him carefully. Her reward was another squeeze of her calf and the resettling of her leg against the horse’s side. He was defintely a confusing one, though.

      Caine tugged the reins over the horse’s head and dropped them to the ground, his mouth creasing at the corners with the hint of amusement as he ordered, “Stay put.”

      And also an irritating one, she decided. Even if she leaned forward the reins were out of her reach, which meant she had no choice but to stay where he’d put her. Caine headed toward the area where the rest of the group waited, mounted. Each step was infused with that combination of strength, grace and confidence that once would have filled her with interest. He stopped at the side of an all-black horse, with white hindquarters covered with black spots, and opened the saddlebags. The horse snaked its head around, teeth showing. With an ease that spoke of long practice, he smacked it across the nose while pulling something free of the bag. Not brutally, but more in the way of a warning. As he tied the bag shut, the horse gathered its haunches as if to kick. Another light slap, this time on its hindquarters and the horse settled down. With a comment to the women who were waiting in various degrees of comfort on their horses, and a pat to the black horse’s shoulder as if what had passed between them were some sort of game, Caine headed back, tucking something into his back pocket before taking whatever he’d grabbed from under his arm.

      When he got close enough, he held up a brown wad of material lying on top of a pile of leather. “Thought you might like these.”

      The first “these” were woolen socks, the second, high-topped moccasins.

      “They’ll be too big.”

      He shrugged and tucked the moccasins under his arm. “They’ll do the job until you get your own clothes.”

      “I don’t have any.” The confession slipped out before she could catch it, snapping his gaze to hers. She quickly waved to the items in his hands. “Moccasins, I mean.”

      “Uh-huh.” He cupped her foot in his hands, warming it between his palms a second before bending to blow. His breath was hot and moist, scalding in comparison to the chill she felt to her bone. Before she could come up with a suitable protest, he worked the sock over her foot. As soon as he came around to the other side, she tucked her foot back against the horse’s withers.

      “I can do it myself.”

      “Not without risking falling off that horse, and I’d say at this point you have enough bruises.”

      As if that settled that, he hooked his fingers around her ankle and drew her foot forward. She suffered through another warming before he slid the sock on. He tipped his hat back when he was done. “Admit it, that feels better.”

      Even though she didn’t like the proprietary way he handled her body, she couldn’t deny how good it felt to have her flesh covered. She hated to be cold. “Yes, it does.”

      He slid the moccasin on, tying the fringed top above her knee, his touch impersonal again. “Good.”

      He went back around the other side, moccasin at the ready. She experimented with bending her right leg. She couldn’t straighten it all the way. She tried to flex it again as he slipped the other moccasin on. “I can’t walk in these.”

      He tied the second moccasin with the same impersonal efficiency as he had the first. “But you can ride, which is more important.”

      “What if we need to run?”

      “If it comes to a footrace, we’re both dead.”

      He pulled worn leather gloves from his back pocket. With a curl of his fingers, he ordered her to hold out her hands. She did cautiously, not liking the emotion flirting with the perimeter of his stern features. He slipped the gloves on her hands and then, before she could pull back, looped a long piece of rawhide around both her wrists, flipping the string between before she could protest. When he put her bound hands on the saddle horn, there was no mistaking the emotion tugging at his mouth. Amusement.

      He tipped his battered brown hat and grabbed up the reins, leading the paint toward the black-spotted horse. “Just in case you were thinking of running from me.”

      3

      Well, at least she was consistent. Caine shifted Desi as she sat sideways on his lap, pulling the thick collar of his coat up over her cheeks, protecting her from chill as they rode into the wind. Adjusting his own poncho, he glanced over at Sam, and damn, he wanted to laugh all over again. Sam was as wet as Desi and mad enough to chew lead and spit bullets. Served Sam right, though, for thinking Desi had even a passing acquaintance with the word quit.

      Untying her hands at the river crossing had been Sam’s first mistake. Thinking a fear of drowning would be a deterrent to trying to escape had been his second. Hell, for that much foolishness he deserved a cold ride back. Water seeped from Desi’s clothes through Caine’s denims as he scanned the countryside. They’d saved half a day by cutting through Hell’s Eight land and slipping through the cave at the back of that box canyon, but he didn’t like how quiet things were. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up straight, which always meant trouble brewing.

      He didn’t have to look far for the cause. The women’s kidnapping had been too haphazard to have been carried out by experienced men, which meant they must have been hired by experienced men, meaning there were likely real Comancheros sitting out there without their income. Not good. Chaser, sensing his tension, snorted and did a quick sidestep. Desi’s fingers dug into his shirt.

      “Easy.”