Free Renegade Bride by Barbara Ankrum Page B

you worried."
    For an instant something flashed heatedly in those odd green eyes of his. She wondered briefly if she'd actually pricked that thick skin. Just as quickly, however, cool dismissal lurked in his expression.
    "I never said I had scruples. Perhaps you should have thought of that before you followed me." He turned away to gather up his reins.
    "And I think you're a liar."
    Her words stopped him cold and he whirled around to face her. "You what?"
    She wondered if she'd gone too far, but it was too late to turn back now. "Seth would never have sent a man he didn't trust after me. Perhaps it's more convenient to let people draw their own conclusions about your scruples or lack of them, Mr. Devereaux. Just as it's easier to pretend you don't care that I just insulted you."
    His jaw worked. "I am used to insults, ma petite."
    She remembered the scene at the ticket window with that woman dragging her boys away from Devereaux as if he were dirt. And she recalled the way she'd treated him when they'd first met. Yes, he was used to insults. But instinctively she knew they cut him more deeply than he would admit.
    He swung up on Buck's back. "I'm headed into the mountains until I can find a place to cross the Sun. If the weather holds, it will take four or five days of hard riding to reach the gold fields. But it's rough travel and not for the faint of heart."
    "And do you think I have a faint heart, Mr. Deve—"
    Unexpectedly, his expression softened. "I have seen that you do not. Do you cook?"
    "I... beg your pardon?"
    "Can you cook? If you come with me, you will do your share. I won't coddle you."
    Mariah checked the flare of hope in her eyes. "Eggs are coddled, Mr. Devereaux. I, on the other hand, am more than willing to do my share. I can cook. Can you hunt?"
    He tossed her a rare grin, as if to say, touché. "At least we won't go hungry."
    At the mention of food, Mariah's stomach growled and she covered the offending spot with her hand. Creed reached in his saddlebag and tossed something to her. She regarded the brownish lump questioningly. "What is it?"
    "Pemmican."
    She stared at him blankly.
    "The Blackfeet make it from pounded cherries, dried meat, and buffalo suet. You eat it, Miss Parsons."
    "Oh." She invested the syllable with all the enthusiasm she could muster and bit into the edge of the lump he'd so generously identified as food. Though she'd prepared for the worst, it was quite good.
    When she looked up, however, Devereaux was already urging his horse up the hill.
    "Wait! Does that mean you'll take me?" She nudged her mare after him with a kick of her heels.
    "Do I have a choice?" he returned over his shoulder.
    She couldn't help the giddy smile of relief that curved over her lips. "Everyone has choices, Mr. Devereaux," she called.
    "Peut- ê tre," he answered, then to himself, he repeated, "Perhaps."

 
     
     
    Chapter 5

     
    In the place known to French trappers as terres mauvaises, or badlands, in the Missouri Breaks, the two men slowed their horses to a trot and entered the narrow chasm in the massive rock wall single-file, trailing a loaded packhorse behind. The smaller and infinitely dirtier of the two went first, signaling to a lookout perched atop the high column of rocks above them like a hawk in search of dinner.
    The straggly-haired lookout smiled toothlessly, then sent out a long plume of tobacco juice in reply, which landed exactly between their two horses. "Hey, Downing—who's the dandy?" he asked with a low, mocking laugh.
    "Save it, Blevins," warned the scruffier of the pair—the man named Downing. He glanced at his companion who, indeed, wore the dandiest clothes he'd ever laid eyes on. From his brocaded satin vest to the finely made black wool frock coat, the man looked as out of place as a piece of fine crystal at a slop trough. Unlike Blevins, the lookout, Downing knew better than to point that out to a man like Reese Daniels.
    "Hey—" Blevins called again, still chuckling. "Where