The Tender Stranger

“You still mad at me?” The question was blunt and to the point, and she felt a flush sweep up over her cheeks.

“No.” She motioned to the table. “Come sit down.

I’ve made gravy for the biscuits. I suspect you’re hungry.”

“Never thought I’d be tempted by raw meat before, but that deer was lookin’ pretty good by the time I got back with it.” Quinn’s voice held more than a hint of good humor, and Erin chanced a look at him.

He was opening biscuits, three of them making a circle on the chipped plate. The skillet of gravy was in the middle of the table and he took the handle with care, holding it with her dish towel.

“Looks good,” he said, and then glanced up. “You ready for some?”

She nodded and he ladled a generous portion onto her single biscuit. The steam rose and he inhaled sharply, sniffing the spicy aroma with appreciation. With the first forkful on its way to his mouth, he remembered his manners.

“Thanks for cooking, Erin. I appreciate it.”

She felt the flush return. “It was the least I could do…Quinn. You’ve been more than generous with your time.”

He shrugged. “Seems to me we’re about even on that score. You let me take shelter from the weather, and I returned the favor another way.”

Her question, burning in her mind for three days, could wait no longer. “Where are you headed, Quinn? After you leave here, I mean,” she asked cautiously, knowing it was an infringement on his privacy. She’d heard in town that one never asked questions in the West, but took folks at their face value.

“Nowhere for a while,” he said with a grin. “I’ve got a deer to butcher and take care of.”

She made an impatient gesture. “You know what I mean. Where were you going when you showed up here? Where will you go when you leave here?”

His smile vanished, and his look was that of a man who didn’t relish explaining himself. “I’ve been looking for someone,” he said finally.

“Up here?” Her brow rose and her heart beat just a bit faster.

“In this general direction.”

The thought that had been nudging at her urged her on. “Will you still be looking when you leave here?” she asked carefully, a sudden sheen of perspiration dampening her forehead. Would Ted Wentworth have gone this far, sending a man to find her?

Quinn bent over his plate and ate, allowing her words to hang between them. Another pair of biscuits found their way to his plate, and he ladled more gravy with careful precision.

“Quinn?”

He looked up. “Probably not.”

“Did the Wentworths.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, they did. I’ve been on your trail for almost three months, Erin. You did some fancy footwork, but buying this cabin, using your real name, was a mistake.”

The perspiration turned her clammy and she rose, suddenly unable to face the food before her. Her chair fell with a loud clatter and she hurried to the door, intent on gaining the porch.

She’d barely inhaled a deep breath, her lungs filling with blessed clean air, chilled by the early-morning frost, when he was there behind her.

His fingers held-her shoulders with a firm grip and he was silent, as if he willed her to speak.

She filled her lungs again and felt the sweat on her forehead evaporating in the clear, crisp breeze. “I’m not going back.”

His fingers tightened; she shivered, aware of his masculine strength, aware that he could easily bundle her atop her horse and take her down the mountain, to where the stagecoach line ran into Denver.

“Are you a bounty hunter?” she asked, despising the thready whisper her voice had become yet unable to strengthen it in the face of imminent disaster.

“I’ve been called that.” He stepped closer, until the heat of his body sheltered her back with seductive warmth. “You’re cold, Erin. Come back inside.”

“You lied to me.” Her words were bleak.

“No, I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

She shivered again, wondering at her foolishness, taking warmth from the man who would be her undoing. “You’re not a miner.”

“I’ve worked the mines.”

“Not Big Bertha, I’d be willing to bet,” she said, her words gaining strength.

“You’d win.”

She watched a hawk circle over the meadow, then swoop to its quarry, rising with a shrill cry of triumph, claws grasping a small creature. She felt a sudden kinship to that rodent, her shoulders held in a grip not unlike that of the bird of prey she watched.

“Come inside. It’s cold out here.” It was a command this time, and she obeyed, unwilling to waste her small reserve of strength on such a useless battle.

Quinn sat back down and picked up his fork. “You need to eat.”

“I’ve lost my appetite.” The words were sharp with reproof.

His lips jerked as if they might curve into a smile and his dark eyes narrowed, as if he appreciated her sarcasm. “You need the food. The baby needs nourishment.”

Erin sat down and pushed at the cold gravy with her fork.

“You’d do better to start fresh,” he said mildly, taking her plate in hand and scooping the remains of her meal to one side. His big hands swallowed a biscuit as he broke it apart, then he spooned warm gravy over it.

“Try that,” he suggested, watching her closely.

She nodded and accepted his offering. “Does the sheriff know that you’re here, looking for me?” she asked.

He shook his head. “There wasn’t any need to tell him. You’re not a hunted criminal, Erin.”

“Damian’s father believes I killed his son.” She ate, chewing and swallowing, as the words rang in her ears. She’d said it aloud, finally.

“Does he?”

She glanced up, her look impatient. “You should know. He obviously hired you to bring me back to New York. He must have decided that he can prove I pushed Damian down those stairs that night.”

“Did you?”

Quinn waited, unaware that he held his breath, watching as her mouth twitched and trembled, just as her hands lifted to cover her face.