Reilly's Woman Page 6

  "You're lucky it didn't bite you," she retorted.

  She knelt beside her suitcase, rummaging through it to find a clean blouse to replace the rumpled one she wore. Silently she swore that if he laughed openly at her grouchy reply, she would throw something at him.

  As if sensing the slender thread that held her temper in check, Reilly didn't enlarge on the subject. "Put some water on to boil so I can shave, will you?" It was more of an order than a question.

  Leah reacted unconsciously to the tone. "Heat your own water!" Then she cursed silently for being so ill-tempered when it wasn't his fault she hadn't slept. Her guilty sideways look caught the sharp narrowing of his eyes. "Never mind," she grumbled, "I'll do it." But she couldn't seem to stop her tongue from tacking on, "After all, it is squaw's work, isn't it?"

  The harsh line of his mouth warned her that she was pushing her luck. "Are you trying to start an argument?" Reilly demanded.

  "No," Leah sighed irritatedly.

  "Good." He pivoted and walked into the brush.

  She scraped a few glowing coals from the fire and added more wood to the rest. The pan of water was balanced on the four supporting rocks around the separated embers.

  With that accomplished, she shrugged off her blouse, the gash in her left arm burning constantly. She carefully eased the clean yellow blouse over it. She was buttoning the last button when Reilly returned. Sliding a glance at the pot, Leah saw the water was steaming.

  "Your water is hot," she told him somewhat coolly.

  "Thanks," was his equally indifferent reply. With a handkerchief from his suitcase, he set the pot off the coals, then paused. "Would you like to wash first?"

  Shaking her head negatively, Leah opened her cosmetic case and took out the bottle of cleansing lotion to clean her face. The mirror in the lid of her cosmetic case was turned at just the right angle so that she saw not only her reflection, but Reilly's too.

  It was a curiously intimate experience to watch a man shave. Long, sun-browned fingers gripped the razor, its blade slicing through the foamy lather and one day's stubble of beard. Each stroke of the blade revealed more of the bronzed skin below his cheekbones and the strong line of his jaw until the handsomely chiselled features were fully exposed.

  As he rinsed away the traces of lather, Leah voiced the thought that had just occurred to her. "I thought Indians didn't shave."

  "They didn't." Reilly wiped the razor dry and replaced it in his suitcase. His voice was emotionless and distant. "They plucked out the hair on their faces." Leah winced at the thought. "Is your arm bothering you this morning?" he asked in the same tone.

  "A bit," she shrugged with one shoulder, carefully favoring the burning wound in the other arm.

  "Let me take a look at it." He started toward her.

  "There's no need," Leah refused quickly and sharply. It was his aloofness that made her reject his suggestion, combined with the lingering crossness of a sleepless night. "It's sore mostly because it's healing."

  Reilly hesitated thoughtfully. "We don't have much bandage left in the kit. I'd rather not change it for a couple of days if it isn't bothering you too much."

  "I said it was just healing pains," she repeated.

  "Very well." He accepted her explanation with a faint grimness. "I'm going to get some more firewood. Have something to eat while I'm gone."

  "I'm not hungry."

  "It might make you feel better," he replied tautly.

  "Improve my disposition, you mean," Leah flashed at his suggestion of criticism. "Well, I'm not hungry."

  A moment of tense silence followed her challenging statement.

  "I realize you didn't sleep well last night," Reilly spoke in an ominously quiet voice, "but I suggest, Miss Talbot, that you stop taking your frustration out on me."

  Miss Talbot, she thought with a dejected sigh as his long strides carried him toward the slope, not Leah any more. She deserved the set-down, she reminded herself, but it didn't make it any less cutting.

  With light make-up applied and her long hair brushed to a silken shine, she slipped off her shoes and shook out the sand. Removing her socks, she grimaced at the sand and dirt that had collected between her toes and on the bottom of her feet. They felt hot and sweaty, too.

  The pan of warm water sat invitingly near, flecks of shaving foam still floating on top. She hesitated for only a second. It would be foolish to put on a clean pair of socks without washing her feet.

  Treading carefully over the rough ground on her bare feet, she retrieved the handkerchief Reilly had laid over a bush to dry. With it as a washcloth and the small bar of soap from her cosmetic case, she started washing her feet in the pan of water. She rinsed the soap away with water from the canteen and wiped her feet dry with the tail of the rumpled blouse she had taken off earlier. The dirtied water she dumped on the sand.

  It was nearly as good as taking a bath, she thought contentedly. When they were rescued, she decided she was going to laze in a bathtub full of bubbles for an hour, or possibly more. She tugged on her clean socks and shook the sand out of her shoes a second time.

  As she slipped on the first shoe, she heard a humming sound. She frowned, listening intently, trying to recognize the cause. She couldn't tell which direction the sound was coming from, yet it seemed to be growing louder.

  Her eyes widened in recognition. It was the drone of an airplane engine. She looked immediately toward the western sky. It was unbelievably near their position and flying toward it. The breeze from the east must have carried the sound until it was nearly above her.

  With an excited shout to Reilly, Leah grabbed for the canteen and dumped the water on the fire. Only a trickle came out, sizzling to a tiny puff of smoke as it touched the fire. She stared at the insignificant puff in disbelief.

  "You fool!" she muttered. "Why did you use all that water to wash your feet?"

  The roar of the plane's engine came from overhead. Wrenching her gaze away from the fire, she looked above her head. There was no indication that they had been seen as it flew onward to the east into the sun.

  "Here we are!" she shouted, running after the plane's shadow and waving her arms frantically. "Here we are! Down here!"

  Reilly came racing down the slope, a miniature avalanche of small rocks rolling before him. "Pour water on the fire!" he shouted.

  Leah stopped. "There isn't any water. I used it all."

  His expression hardened at her statement, but there was no comment on her stupidity. Without breaking stride, he hit the level ground at the bottom of the slope. He paused long enough to pick up the wrinkled red cloth that had been their blanket and tossed it to her.

  "Wave that in the air!" he snapped out the order. "The aluminum side up!"

  As she obeyed, she was conscious of Reilly kneeling beside her cosmetic case, but she was more aware of the plane flying away from them. Then Reilly was standing beside her, the rectangular mirror from the lid of her cosmetic case in his hand.

  While she waved the blanket until she thought her arm would drop off, he wigwagged the mirror in the sun, trying to pinpoint the flashing light on the plane. But the plane never wavered from its course.

  "Come back!" Leah screamed. Her arm hung limply at her side, without the strength to raise the blanket one more time, her injured left arm cradled across her waist.

  It disappeared into the sun. A tear slipped from her lashes, then another and another until there was a silent, steady stream down her cheeks. Her lips were salty with the taste of her tears.

  "They didn't see us," she whispered in a choked, tight voice.

  Her chin trembled as she turned to look at Reilly. His hands were on his hips in a stance of angry disgust. He was staring into the emptiness where the plane had been. He turned, turbulent green eyes briefly meeting hers before he walked back to the fire.

  "I'm sorry, Reilly." Leah followed him. The stiff blanket was still clutched in her fingers, trailing along the ground behind her. "It's all my fault. I'd used al
l the water to wash my feet and I threw it away without thinking."

  "Your feet?" he repeated dryly, his speaking glance saying all the things he didn't put into words.

  "They were dirty," she offered lamely in defence.

  Reilly began stacking the few remaining logs on to the fire. His silence was more crushing than any verbal condemnation. Finally Leah couldn't take it any more, and her anger and hurt erupted like a volcano.

  "Why don't you say something?" she accused. "Why don't you shout at me and tell me what a stupid idiotic thing it was to do? We both know it was, so why don't you say it! Get angry or something! Don't just keep putting wood on the fire as if nothing had happened!"

  "There wouldn't be any point," Reilly answered calmly, rising to his feet and brushing his hands on his thighs. Except for the grim tightness of his mouth an impersonal mask had slipped over his face. "I'm going to go and fill the canteen and bring down the firewood."

  A broken sigh of frustration slipped from her constricting throat.

  "What if the plane comes back while you're gone?"

  "Wave the blanket and yell for me."

  When he had disappeared up the slope, Leah collapsed on her knees. Her fingers relaxed their death grip on the blanket and it lay beside her, the shiny aluminum side catching the sun's rays. She was exhausted and emotionally drained.

  She wanted to bury her head in her arms and cry silently at her stupidity, but she didn't dare. There was a chance that the plane might fly back this way. She couldn't risk being caught unaware a second time.

  Sniffing back the tears, she wiped the salty dampness from her cheeks and started scanning the skies. Her ears strained to hear the drone of an airplane engine. There was only the desert mountain silence until the rolling of stones down the slope heralded Reilly's return.

  After setting the armload of wood on the ground a few feet away from the fire, Reilly handed the canteen to Leah. "Have a drink."

  She looked at it as if it were poison. She was hot and tired and very thirsty, but no matter how parched her throat might be, she didn't want to drink the water that might get them rescued.

  "No," she refused with quiet firmness.

  Exasperation straightened the line of his mouth. "A swallow isn't going to do any harm. Take a drink," he ordered.

  Reluctantly Leah obeyed, taking a small sip and letting it roll around to wet her dry mouth before swallowing it. Moistening her lips with her tongue, she handed the canteen back to him, aware of the alert greenness of his eyes watching her, but unable to meet it.

  The canteen was set in the shade of the firewood. Without a word Reilly walked over and picked up the thin blanket lying on the ground beside Leah. She frowned, wondering what he intended to do with it, then saw him erecting the lean-to.

  Her frown deepened. "Won't we need the blanket to signal the plane?"

  Reilly didn't turn away from his task as he answered. "It can be torn down in seconds if we see the plane. In the meantime it will be of more service as a sunshade."

  Leah stared at the crackling fire. It burned cleanly, a thin wisp of smoke rising and disappearing in the clear desert air almost immediately. Shimmering heat waves danced above the fire.

  "The plane flew almost directly over us," she said quietly. "I didn't hear it coming until it was almost here. Why couldn't they see us?"

  "In the first place," Reilly secured the last corner of the lean-to, "they were flying into the morning sun. Their vision was impaired. And in the second place, they were looking for airplane wreckage." His head nodded in the general direction of the slide. "Ours is buried beneath that."

  "They would have seen the smoke signal, though," she sighed, gazing into the morning sky. "It's my fault."

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Reilly ordered firmly.

  "I'm not!" Leah protested indignantly.

  "Yes, you are, and it's not going to change anything."

  "I never said it would," she retorted.

  "Then let's stop discussing what happened and be prepared in case the plane flies back this way."

  Leah paused. Something in his voice made her ask, "Do you think it will?"

  "I don't know." Nothing in his expression revealed what Reilly really thought or believed.

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  Chapter V

  A cloud blocked out the western sun. A halo of gold formed around its gray-white shape, then streamed to earth to bronze the sage-covered ground.

  Leah's blouse was damp with perspiration, clinging to her like a second skin. Her arm ached with an agonizing throb. That morning's exertion when she had tried and failed to use it to wave the blanket at the plane had increased its soreness.

  Wearily she pressed her right hand against her forehead for a few seconds, then lifted her head, her hand pushing the hair away from her face. All day they had waited and the plane had not returned. It was nearing sundown.

  Her clouded hazel eyes moved to Reilly, relentlessly watching the sky yet seeming to be miles away in thought. "How long do you think they'll continue looking for us?" She voiced the fear that had been recurring all day.

  The remoteness remained in his bland jade eyes as he glanced at her. "It's hard to say. An extensive air search is expensive and time-consuming," he replied. "They'll probably look for a couple more days at most. After that, they'll ask local pilots to keep a lookout for any sign of wreckage and send out one or two search planes of their own."

  The knowledge was sobering. The possibility of being stranded in this wilderness for more days seemed probable. Leah knew she couldn't think about that without sinking into a morass of guilt feelings. And Reilly was right, that wouldn't solve anything.

  "I think I'll get us something to eat," she murmured.

  Food didn't interest her. At lunch, she had chewed indifferently on a stack of beef jerky, knowing that she had to eat something. It was the latter motivation instead of hunger that prompted her to cook the evening meal. The side benefit would be taking her mind off their situation.

  After three days, the choice of dried food dishes had dwindled considerably. Leah glanced through the few that remained, searching for one that at least sounded appetizing.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Reilly crouching in front of the suitcases. Curious, she shifted slightly to see what he was doing, and her lips parted in surprise. It was her suitcase he had opened and was searching through the contents.

  "What do you think you're doing, going through my suitcase?" she challenged, rising angrily to her feet and striding to his side. He didn't even look up. "Those happen to be my personal things and you have no right going through them!"

  He set a stack of her lingerie to one side and started going through her assortment of outer clothes. She tried taking them out of his hands to jam them back in her suitcase, but he picked them up and discarded them quicker than she could stop him.

  "Did you hear what I said?" she demanded finally.

  "I'm not stealing anything," Reilly answered her finally. "I'm trying to find if you have anything suitable for walking."

  "You could ask!" Leah retorted bitterly. She tried to fold the items he had discarded. "You don't have to rummage through my things!"

  "I've seen women's clothes before. There's no need to let your modesty embarrass you." He held up a pair of corded slacks of wheat tan and a long-sleeved blouse of white with tiny gold and brown diamond patterns crisscrossing it. "These should do."

  Leah sat back on her heels, stating at his impassive face bewilderedly. "Should do for what?" she frowned. A piece of his earlier remark came filtering back. "What did you mean 'suitable for walking?'"

  "We're leaving," Reilly announced calmly, and turned to her cosmetic case. "Do you have any face cream in here?" he asked as he snapped open the lid.

  "Yes." She reached in and picked up the jar. "Why do you want it?" The answer to that wasn't nearly so important when his announcement sank in. "How are we leaving?"

  "On foot, of
course." He flicked a brief glance at her, then opened the jar and removed a dab of cream with his forefinger, rubbing it experimentally between his finger and thumb. "This cream is going to protect your pale face from the sun."

  "On foot? You must be crazy!" Leah stared out over the vast desert mountain wilderness.

  "It would be crazier to stay here." The cosmetic case was abandoned as Reilly opened his own suitcase.

  "I know you think I'm stupid—" Leah began hotly.

  "I think nothing of the sort," Reilly interrupted evenly.

  "But I do know," she continued with barely a break, "that when you're lost and people are looking for you, you're supposed to stay in one place and not go wandering off. We don't even know where we are!"

  He removed two of his dirty shirts from the suitcase and closed the lid. "I have a rough idea."

  "Wonderful," Leah murmured sarcastically. When he rose to his feet she followed as closely as his shadow. "Does that mean we're somewhere in Nevada? I could have made that guess."

  Reilly stopped shortly, nearly causing her to run into his broad back. His gaze was hard as steel when he looked at her.

  "We're on the east side of the Monitor Range, which would put us roughly sixty miles from the nearest town as the crow flies. In this terrain, on foot, it would probably be ninety miles."

  In this emptiness, it seemed impossible that they were even that close to civilization. "We could die out there," Leah argued.

  "We could die here," he pointed out.

  "Yes, but"—his reply put her off her stride for a second—"here, we at least have a chance of being found, of signalling the next plane."

  "When will it come, Leah?" Reilly studied her rebellious yet frightened expression. "Tomorrow? The day after? Three days from now? When?"

  "I don't know." Her hand lifted to wave the question aside. "But it will come. My parents and Lonnie won't stop looking until they find me. I know they won't!"

  "I agree, but time is still the factor."

  "Why?" she demanded.

  "Because in three, maybe four more days we won't have the food, the water, or the strength to walk out of here." The lowness of his voice, his calmness, seemed designed to impress on her the gravity of their situation.