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The old man seemed as if he too slept, until he heard the soft snores from Asher, then he wiggled his hands and the ropes fell away. “Fool,” he muttered, looking at Asher’s sleeping form with contempt as he untied his feet. “Fool.”
He stood, making no noise at all, looked around a bit until he saw a large rock nearby then picked it up and crept toward Asher. He brought the rock crashing down on Asher’s head as he slept.
The old man stood over Ash for a moment, looking at the unconscious form before ransacking his pockets. It took him only fifteen minutes before he’d taken everything of value from Asher, leaving him lying there in his underwear only, his saddle and gun gone, no money, no boots. For a moment, the old man contemplated taking his underwear or at least cutting the buttons off, but he heard a horse in the distance and decided to get out of there.
As he mounted one horse, leading the other one, he began to mutter, “You think you’re so smart, Mr. Mother-Killer Tynan, but I know somebody that’ll pay to know where you are. I know somebody. I’ll show you.” He cursed and muttered as he traveled north toward the Dysan estate.
Chapter Twenty-four
Chris tried her best to stay away from Tynan for the next two days, but it was almost impossible to do. If she went for water, there he was. If she stopped for a moment to look at the scenery, there he was, his eyes on her in invitation. Once, she jumped when she heard something in the underbrush and Ty was there to put his arms around her and hold her. They heard shots in the distance on the morning of the second day and her heart was in her throat as Tynan, with rifle in hand, crept down the steep path to see who it was. She nearly cried with relief when he came back to tell her that it was only hunters and they were far away.
“Worried about me?” he asked, his eyes hot and showing his desire for her.
Chris picked up her skirts and fled from him.
“Anything wrong?” Pilar asked innocently. She’d taken over the cooking ever since Chris had ruined some of their precious flour trying to make biscuits.
“That man is the worst!” she said, her heart pounding.
“He certainly does like you.”
“Well, I don’t like him.”
Pilar snorted. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?”
“I think there were many things my mother didn’t teach me,” Chris said softly. “Such as how to say no to persuasive gunslingers. Pilar, I think I’m weakening. Two more days of this and I won’t be able to say no to anything he asks of me.”
“I have an idea Ty knows that.”
“Well, I have to be strong. I amnotgoing to give into him and that’s final. No matter what he says to me, no matter how he looks at me, I’m not going to give into him.” She looked at Pilar with great sadness and worry in her eyes. “But if he kisses the back of my neck one more time, I’m lost.”
Pilar turned back to her biscuits with a smile on her face.
Chris succeeded in staying away from Ty for the rest of the day but that night he asked her to take a walk with him.
“I didn’t ask you to run off with me, Chris, just take a walk,” he said when he saw her lips form the word ‘no.’ “I swear I won’t touch you since I know you can’t trust yourself with me, but at least—”
“Can’t trust myself with you! I most certainly can trust myself with you. I could spend the rest of my life on a tropical island with you and still resist you,” she lied.
“That’s great,” he said with a grin. “Then you can go with me into the moonlight right now.”
Chris knew she’d talked herself into a corner and so she appealed to Pilar for help, but Pilar refused to go with them, saying that her arm hurt too much. Of course it hadn’t hurt while she’d pounded dough, but now it was too painful for her to even move.
Reluctantly, Chris started walking up the little trail toward the spring, Tynan behind her.
“Are we competing in a road race or are you afraid to walk beside me?” he asked.
She stopped and turned toward him. “Of course I’m not afraid to walk with you. It’s just that you don’t realize how slow your sore leg makes you.”
“Is that it?” he said, smiling in a knowing way. He took her arm in his. “Then maybe you should help poor little invalid me,” he said.
They walked together for a few moments, Chris trying to stay away from him in spite of their locked arms.
“A few weeks ago, I couldn’t get rid of you. Every time I turned around, there you were, demanding that I take off my shirt or shoes, and the first few times I saw you, you weren’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Now, you’ll hardly get near me.”
“That was before,” she said, looking straight ahead.
“Before the night in the logger’s cabin? Before the night we made love and had such a wonderful time?”
