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She glared up at him and staggered to her feet, wiping the dirt off her jeans. "That wasn't funny."
He grinned. "Yes it was."
Lainie thought about it, tried to imagine what she'd looked like, shrieking and flailing and falling. She had to admit it was a little funny. She might have smiled if she hadn't been dead tired. Slowly, clutching her lower back in fingers that had gone numb ten miles ago, she hobbled away from the horse. In some distant, hazy part of her brain, she thought that she should tie the horse up first?she'd always have a character do that. But frankly, she didn't give a shit. If the horse ran from here to Texas, she'd wave good-bye.
She staggered forward. Her foot landed in a hole,
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twisted her ankle hard. She gasped as pain shot up her shin.
"Christ," he cursed. She heard the utter disgust in his voice, but she didn't care much about that either.
He moved toward her, his footsteps crunching quickly through the pebbly dirt. Suddenly he touched her, swung her around, and swept her up in a movement so fast, it left her dizzy and breathless.
God help her, she wilted at his touch. An exhausted sigh escaped her lips. She knew she should kick and scream and rip his eyes out?it's what all those feisty heroines did at a high-handed macho move like this. But she couldn't. Didn't even want to.
All the energy she'd fabricated evaporated. Without it, she felt suddenly as weak as a newborn kitten. She brought her arms around Killian's neck and let her head loll against his chest. Her eyes fluttered shut.
The even in-and-out rhythm of his chest rocked her gently. She frowned sleepily. There was something almost sadly familiar about this moment, as if once?long ago?she'd been carried by him. Everything about him was familiar: the sweat and dust smell of his clothing, the threadlike softness of his hair as it touched her cheek, the loose-hipped rhythm of his walk.
They'd done this before, the two of them... .
She realized her own foolishness and forced a weary, tired little laugh. She was hallucinating again. Of course there was something familiar about Killian. She'd created him, for God's sake. Everything about him was well-known to her.
He set her down on a rock beside the stream. The gurgling rush of the water was a thread of normalcy in the shifting strangeness of the desert. Here, at last, was something she recognized.
"Can you make a fire?" he asked.
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She looked up at him. He was a looming, faceless shadow against the moon-bright sky. "If you've got a Bic lighter or a blowtorch."
She felt his gaze on her face and she knew, even in the utter darkness of shadow, that he was frowning. As usual, he didn't know what to make of her. Finally he looked away and then let it go. He searched through his baggy duster pockets and pulled out something, tossing it at her feet. A metal box hit the ground with a tiny clang.
She stared down at the little tin box, feeling a ridiculously overblown sense of relief. She recognized it from the 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog. It was a pocket match safe.
"How about that?" he said in a barely controlled voice. "Can you make a fire with matches?"
She reached out and grabbed the box, curling her blistered fingers around the cool metal, then she tried to stand up.
It felt as if someone had kicked her in the crotch. She made a gasping, wheezing sound of pain and started to fall.
Killian was beside her in an instant, his arm curled around her shoulders to help her stand. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice rich and disembodied in the darkness.
"Did I give birth a few minutes ago?"
There was a long pause. "No."
"Then I'm definitely not okay. I feel like shit."
"You're not used to riding?"
"Give the man a teddy bear. No, Killian, I am not used to riding."
He leaned closer, tightened his hold. "It hurts in the beginning," he whispered in a rough, Scottish-tinged
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