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  He moved roughly against her, claiming her fully and quickly.

  Regina trembled and ached, wanting more.

  “Kiss me, you oaf,” she muttered between her teeth.

  Obeying her, MacGregor settled deep within her. His lips moved sweetly, leisurely across hers as she swirled through the clouds, cradling him and tugging him deeper within her. She’d seen mating birds fly against the sky, and the soaring heat shot through her as though he’d swept her to the sun. There were colors and heat.... Her light cry echoed softly against his cheek as she drifted back gently to the furs.

  MacGregor closed his eyes, feeling the tight woman-muscles closing on him, keeping him when he was past his time.

  He wanted that desperately—the tender enclosure when the moment was gone. Beneath him, Regina breathed rapidly as though she had run a long hard race. And she kept him close.

  She’d drawn him into the fire her first time, caught him, and made him weak.

  Still sheathed within her, he frowned against the mass of sweetly scented hair ensnaring him. Her small breasts rose and fell against him delicately, and MacGregor found himself waiting for the brief touch.

  She’d held him as closely as a knife in a sheath. Wanted him. And had only asked for her saddle and a kiss.

  MacGregor shifted, suddenly uneasy with her softness about him, beneath him.

  He’d wanted her quickly.

  She’d taken him to a place he knew he’d never forget.

  Now she stared at him, looking stunned and helpless. And so soft.

  He had to kiss her. Her mouth moved softly beneath him, answering the aching need within him.

  Against his mouth, she whispered raggedly, “Loose my hands, MacGregor.”

  When he obeyed slowly, he realized he must have hurt her in his passion. Her hands skimmed his shoulders lightly, caressing him. He wanted that touch, craved the slender fingers flowing across his shoulders like leaves drifting down a slow stream on a hot summer day.

  “My dear,” she whispered unevenly against his ear. “Are we quite finished?”

  He swallowed, suddenly as weak and exposed as his son. He wanted to slide into her warmth and forget his past of pain.

  He wanted the throbbing sweetness, the hot velvety sheath tight around him, and the low moans as she fought her passion.

  Trembling, fighting the new emotions within him, MacGregor stared at her helplessly only to find two dark purple eyes meeting his own.

  A slender pale hand reached to sweep back a strand of his hair gently. The light touch caused MacGregor to feel as though he stood on the edge of a high cliff, and the earth began crumbling slowly beneath him.

  “There wasn’t much to that after all,” she whispered huskily. “And now that it’s done, shall we prepare to leave? I want to ride properly in my saddle.”

  ~**~

  At midday, Venus crouched against Regina, shivering beneath the weight of the buffalo robe they shared. Gathering the dog closer, Regina tightened her legs around the Appaloosa gelding as he picked his way across a rocky path.

  Snow crept beneath the robe MacGregor had tucked roughly around her, the freezing wind almost burning her cheeks until she burrowed deeper in the coarse fur.

  Leading, walking beside his horse, MacGregor turned back to glare at her. When she had demanded leaving immediately to get her saddle, he’d thrown the furs back angrily. “You’ll have it, by God. Though I should end this foolishness now.”

  Now Regina pulled Venus closer to her, whispering to the dog. “MacGregor is certainly in a terrible state of mind. Moody. Even his horse, Kansas, is acting out of sorts. Poor Jack is such a sweet child, despite his father’s black moods.”

  Venus whimpered, thrusting her long nose out into the cold air. Regina tucked the lush fur around her pet. “When we get to civilization, he’ll be rid of us. That should make him even happier.”

  Walking ahead and leading his small train, MacGregor was outlined against the dark, ominous sky. His robe swirled about him, the baby safe in a sling against his hard body.

  The long rifle was gripped in his hand, the metal catching the dull light like the steel of a knight’s lance.

  “I didn’t like being ordered about this morning like a simpleton, Venus. Not a bit. The man has much to learn about treating a woman with... dignity. Etiquette is very important, even in the wilds.”

  Regina shifted on the saddle, adjusting to the uncomfortable aches in her body. She had not expected her loss of virginity to be so painless. Nor to have the burning, exquisite ache. Actually, MacGregor with his rough style was more careful than the men of the women she had heard talking.

  Her lips pursed softly, remembering his kiss. She had no doubt that the caress was new to him. But the way his brows drew together as though concentrating solely on her mouth was somehow... endearing.

  “Posh! I merely accommodated his animal needs so that we could be on our way. One has to make sacrifices. With the storms coming we would have been trapped in that cabin until spring.”

  MacGregor had shot dark, menacing glances at her after leaving the pallet and jerking on his trousers. Draped in his long hair and beard, and stalking about the cabin, he left no doubt that he was angry. But he had carefully prepared new water for her bath and had stepped outside as she cleansed him from her.

  Closing her eyes, Regina remembered the dark concern in his eyes as he had returned to the cabin with wood. She was sipping her tea and holding Jack, enjoying to the last minute the safety of the cabin.

  He had glared at her as he eyed her torn velvet riding dress. “You’ll be wearing my clothes. The wind will cut right through those duds.”

  In the end he helped her roll up the trousers and fasten them with a thong. Tugging up his woolen stockings, Regina found him kneeling at her feet. MacGregor had fashioned small moccasins for her, turning the fur side inward. Slipping them on her feet, he adjusted the laces, then wrapped a sheath of fur around her calves up to her knees. His large hand had brushed her thigh and had opened to rest momentarily on her.

  Then MacGregor jerked his hand away as though he was not aware of touching her.

  In preparing to load the animals, he had snapped at her, “You keep that pouch of food slung across you, miss. You’ll be needing nourishment before we stop.”

  When she’d asked about the mottled horses, his answer was curt. “Appaloosas. Nez Perce ponies. You’ll ride Fleetfire, a gelding. My horse is Kansas, and Blood is that bad-tempered broomtail carrying your chest. Mules are Daub and Ned.”

  The strong horses had stamped and whinnied, excited as MacGregor checked the packs. Marked by white across their rumps and loins, their chestnut coats caught the shimmering mist, their nostrils shooting steam into the freezing air.

  Pausing, he had looked up at her. “We’re going across the mountains, and it’s hard traveling. You’ll have to hold the dog. She can have some food, too, I guess. I’ll tend to Jack.”

  Now MacGregor’s robes swirled as he turned to her, the rugged mountains behind him covered with deep snow. The wind swept through the pine trees, the branches swishing softly.

  So he was angry with her, was he? She hadn’t incited his attack. When they reached civilization—

  Regina frowned, gathering Venus’s warmth closer to her. “Lord Covington and his henchmen will pay. So will my father.”

  By the late evening Regina’s head drooped, her body aching. She felt herself being lifted down from the horse, a man’s deep voice soothing away her protests as he placed her on the ground and covered her with another robe. He tucked a flap of the pelt across her face, warming her.

  When she awoke, she discovered that MacGregor had fashioned a lean-to around her and was feeding Jack outside. A small fire licked at the damp wood, and snow lay like a thin white blanket across the clearing in the pines. Wolves howled in the distance, and a deer haunch sizzled on a spit. Strips of meat cooked slowly over another green branch braced against the spit. The remainder of the dee
r he’d wrapped in canvas hung high from a tree, anchored by a rope tied to a lower branch.

  MacGregor had heated water in a pot, and the tin of tea leaves waited on a flat rock.

  Regina yawned, feeling as though she could sleep for days. She stretched beneath the layers of furs, surprised by the warmth surrounding her. By using pine boughs, blankets, and furs, MacGregor had made his lean-to warm and snug.

  “You’re awake, then,” he said roughly as she wrapped a robe about her and sat beside him. He studied Jack’s fat cheeks intently. “Ah... if you need help in the bushes, yell.”

  “I can manage quite well, thank you,” she returned stiffly.

  “There’s Indians here. Until they know what my woman looks like, you be careful.”

  “Your woman! You are daft!” she hissed, rising and sweeping regally from the camp. “Come, Venus,” she ordered the greyhound, who looked at MacGregor.

  “Go with her, dog,” he said gently.

  “You don’t have to take orders from that oaf,” Regina snapped as Venus trailed after her, looking back longingly at the warm camp. “After all, he’s been well paid and will have more, once we get my saddle.”

  When she returned, she stamped her foot near him as he lounged, watching the fire. Jack rested lengthwise on MacGregor’s long thighs, happily nesting in the warmth. Regina’s legs weakened as she thought about the strength of his legs within hers.

  She curled her fist against her side, fighting the odd tide of emotions sweeping over her. “Perhaps we should get the traveling arrangements in order, MacGregor. We are simply making do until we reach civilization. I can pay you well for your trouble, and then you can go on your merry way—”

  He tossed a sourdough biscuit at her. When she caught it, he ordered mildly, “Better eat. You’re scrawny enough already. On the blankets your bones stab a man until he aches.”

  She caught the swift look of pain in his black eyes, and then it was gone. “You look no more than a child,” he muttered in disgust.

  “I’m thirty-one years of age,” she shot back hotly. He certainly didn’t have to test her bones and complain about them! “How old are you, MacGregor?”

  Rocking Jack gently within his thighs, the mountain man answered warily, “Near as I can figure, I should have about thirty-nine or forty summers behind me.”

  “Then I should think,” she gritted from between her teeth, “that a man your age should have acquired a few ideas about the delicacy of a lady—”

  “You mean like not staking a claim on my woman?” he demanded too softly. “You’re a sore measure at that. Rangy as a scrub cayuse pony.”

  Regina took a deep breath and found her mouth watering for the bread. “We’ll see,” she answered stiffly.

  How could she possibly have felt any tenderness for him earlier as he lay sprawled upon her? He’d caught her broadside and winded her, that was all, she answered silently. Weakened by her experience, of course she was susceptible to anyone who would take her to safety.

  Tearing off a chunk of biscuit, she glared at him as she carefully swept the robe aside to sit. Jack hiccupped in his sleep, his fat cheeks working as he dreamed of his milk. MacGregor’s hard face softened as he drew a warm pelt about his son.

  He tossed a biscuit to Venus, who grabbed it in the air and settled next to the mountain man. MacGregor adjusted part of Jack’s fur pelt across the dog, rubbing her back. “Good dog.”

  “Venus, you traitor,” Regina accused drowsily as she reached for a pan of roast meat. She chewed it slowly, staring at the fire and letting the juices strengthen her.

  “You’re getting worked up again, aren’t you, woman?”

  The soft question cut across her dark brooding. “I’d like to kill them,” she said slowly, meaning every word.

  “And me, too, along the way?” he asked roughly, handing her a tin cup of hot tea. “Packed your fancy dishes away so they wouldn’t break.”

  He caught her wrist, turning it carefully within his large hand to examine the new bruises. His expression darkened. “Them hurting you, then me.”

  “Perhaps. But I struck a bargain with you, and I expect you to hold to it.” She sipped the tea, noting that he drank coffee. Jack cried in his sleep as MacGregor lifted and carried him into the lean-to. When he emerged, he carefully draped a pelt across the opening and anchored it at the bottom with a rock.

  Regina watched sleepily as MacGregor checked on his horses and mules. Then he was standing over her, holding out his hand. The broad, upturned palm lined with calluses seemed so safe—

  “Ma’am?”

  His hand drew her upright, then settled possessively on the small of her back as they entered the lean-to.

  ~**~

  Chapter Six

  MacGregor opened his mouth to yell at Smythe, who had just stepped into the sniper’s line of fire. Smythe’s blond head exploded, a fine spray of blood and brains hitting MacGregor’s blue uniform coat.

  MacGregor froze in midstride, the sound of Smythe’s scream echoed through his brain....

  A woman cried out softly in the dark, a high-pitched keening sound like a child. “Don’t hurt me, Papa,” the girl begged, whimpering. “Papa, please don’t hurt Jennifer.”

  A cold wind pelted snow against MacGregor’s nose as he awoke completely. He was fully dressed, as was the woman twisting on the furs beside him. A heavy robe covered them both, and she fought it with hands and knees. Jack slept quietly in his warm, furry nook.

  A small snow flurry brushed MacGregor’s face as he sought her face, a pale oval shape in the night. In the darkness her enormous eyes held the terror of her nightmare. “Don’t hurt me....”

  MacGregor’s heart pounded against his side, his stomach turning at the woman’s whimpers. “Wake up,” he whispered softly so as not to wake up his son.

  When he edged closer to her, her eyes widened with fear. Backing against the wall of branches, her lips formed a silent “No.”

  Caught by the dark side, terror washed the woman’s face.

  He’d seen soldiers awake from sleep, tangled in their nightmares. Trapped by his horror, another man had fired at a sleeping soldier in his blankets, killing him.

  “It’s all right,” MacGregor whispered as he held very still, watching the wide, dark eyes slowly lose their wild glaze. “Shh.”

  Huddling against the lean-to wall, Regina shivered, her teeth catching the softness of her bottom lip. “MacGregor?” she asked softly, warily.

  “I’m here and Jack is sleeping in his nest.”

  She shivered again, her eyes wide in the shadows. He wanted to hold her. To stroke that small quivering body and smooth away her fears.

  He watched her long lashes close slowly and thought of the new, strangely soft hunger to linger with her. Even now he wanted to slide closer to her, holding her against his chest as he would Jack.

  But he wanted that small tight body heating his, holding him and clinging desperately to him as if he were a part of her. In his lifetime he had needed no one; the thought that the woman he had chosen was also his need settled uncomfortably on him.... “I can’t sleep. You were making noises,” he muttered darkly, drawing the pelt higher on his shoulder.

  He’d lived without kindness in his life, knowing that when he took a woman, it served a need. Distrusting the softer elements brewing within him, MacGregor held his body taut and ached.

  His palm ached to slide beneath her clothing and rest upon her small breast. Just to touch her, feel the beat of her heart like a wild, trapped bird, and to smell the exotic, spicy scent of her skin....

  Trembling over the planes of his face, her fingers followed the hard bones and dark heavy brows. Her touch floated over an old scar and retraced the broken angle of his nose.

  “MacGregor?” she asked softly again, easing a strand of hair back from his forehead. Smoothing the hard line of his jaw, searching out the taut muscle as he ground his teeth, her fingers trembled.

  “Go back to sleep,” he orde
red harshly. Aching for her softness, he found himself afraid. He’d heard of men losing their souls to women, ruled by a soft touch and a warm bed. He was long past an age for cuddling in the night. When he wanted her, he’d take her....

  Glancing at Jack, she pushed a clinging tendril away from her cheek. “I must apologize...”

  Then MacGregor’s fingers sifted the silky strands, easing them from around her neck. A vein throbbing rapidly slid down the smooth, pale column, and he wanted to place his mouth over it. To taste the heat and the life within her. In the shadows she looked back at him, vulnerable as a fawn hidden by its mother. He’d never wanted to place his mouth on a woman’s skin before, wanted to taste the sweetness lingering there— “Go back to sleep,” he urged more gently.

  “I should have braided my hair,” she offered hesitantly and glanced at him. MacGregor’s black eyes had glimpsed her frightening past and hadn’t laughed. “What time is it?”

  Husky with sleep, his voice wrapped softly around her. “Two more hours before rising. You’d better rest.”

  “I want to see Lord Covington’s face when we take the saddle. If you’re as good with a gun as you say you are, there should be no problem.” Regina sat upright, crossed her legs, and tried to gather her hair into her hands.

  MacGregor lay back, his arms crossed behind his head as he watched her futile efforts to control the strands flowing down her body. He toyed with the end of a curl, bringing it across his mouth and catching the tangy, spicy scent. “You’ll follow my orders and stay put, Duchess. Or we’ll stop right here....”

  “You made a bargain.” Regina’s pale face turned to him in the darkness. “And I am not a duchess.”

  “I keep my bargains. But you stay behind with Jack while I collect that saddle you’re so set on. If I hadn’t read in the book that women had to have their special things around them to be happy, we’d be headed for my cabin now.”

  Her mouth opened as though to argue, then closed quickly.

  Nibbling on her bottom lip, she fretted with her hair. Spilling over her graceful, slender hands and nimble fingers, the elusive silky locks defied her efforts. Somehow a fat coil had twined around his finger, trapping him. MacGregor ran his thumb across the curl, testing its silky, clean texture.