blanket. And though Serenity was able to avoid thinking about what the blanket covered, she couldn’t fail to notice the strength of his arms, the muscular breadth of his chest, the slim, lean contours of his waist.
She didn’t want to notice them. The last time she’d seen a man undressed…
Covering her face with her hands, Serenity turned her back on Changying’s patient. She should have felt utter loathing. She’d deliberately cut off even the remotest physical reaction to any man since her escape six years ago. She had believed herself incapable of experiencing such attraction again.
And she wasn’t experiencing it now. It was only the poison this man had brought with him that had infected her brain like a fever. That made her view his body with admiration instead of disgust.
Slowly she turned around again and deliberately examined him with the cool detachment Changying had displayed. It was only a body. A magnificent example, but only a body nonetheless. It had no power to frighten or attract her.
Slumping back against the partition, she closed her eyes. She didn’t realize how exhausted she was until she woke suddenly from a standing doze. Instantly she looked down. The man was staring back at her with cool gray eyes.
“Ma’am,” he croaked. “Would you mind telling me…where am I?”
CHAPTER TWO
THE WOMAN DIDN’T answer at first, and that was just as well. Jacob was far from ready to get up, and talking at all was difficult. He was naked under the blanket someone had thrown over him, his gun and knives were gone, and he had no idea where he was.
But his wounds hurt less, his mouth had a little moisture in it, and he was finally able to get a good look at his savior. What he saw surprised him.
At first glance she didn’t look like the kind of woman who could face down a band of outlaws and outshoot them with exquisite precision. She was petite and fine-boned, with almost delicate features and dark blond hair pulled severely away from her face.
And she was pretty. By no means a great beauty, but then, a woman who carried a gun on her hip wasn’t likely to be overly concerned with her appearance. Her face was tanned and unpainted, her figure completely concealed by baggy boy’s trousers and a shirt, with only a telltale dip at the waist where her belt held her clothing closer to her body. He was willing to bet she wasn’t wearing a corset, either. Most men would have judged her appearance beyond the pale of anything proper for a female.
Once Jacob might have done the same. He wondered about her male kinfolk; few men worth their salt would let a wife or daughter or sister dress that way, or ride into the desert with only a couple of other females as an escort. It was a man’s place to protect his women, and there was no excuse for such a lapse. No excuse at all.
Yet for all her small size, nothing in the lady’s appearance or in her steady glare suggested weakness or dependence on anyone.
He remembered her name. Serenity. The woman who was anything but serene.
Without a word, she retrieved a pitcher standing on a stool against the wall to his left and sloshed water into a glass. Jacob remembered someone giving him water before, but he didn’t think it had been this woman. The hands had been gentle, the face—what he had been able to see of it in his delirium—entirely different.
Stiffly the woman bent over him, as if she hoped to put the glass to his lips without coming anywhere near him. After a moment she knelt, still keeping her distance, and put the glass down just long enough to push the sack of grain that served as his pillow higher under his shoulders.
“Drink,” she said, and set the rim of the glass to his lips. The water tasted like ambrosia as it coated his mouth and trickled down his throat. The moment he had had enough, the woman put the glass down, stood and resumed her place against the wall.
Jacob half closed his eyes. It was difficult to keep them open, but he had to know more about this woman and why she, though so obviously hostile, had helped him.
“Ma’am,” he tried again, “I’d be obliged if you would tell me where I am.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at some point behind his head as if she could burn a hole in the wall with her stare. “You’re at Avalon,” she said.
Avalon. He’d heard her speak the word before, but it also echoed in other memories. Somewhere, sometime long past, when he’d been only a boy, he’d heard the name. It meant nothing to him now.
“A ranch?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Her voice was no longer distorted by distance or his delirium, but it still didn’t match the delicacy of her face. It should have been soft and soothing, not harsh, as it was when she spoke to him. It should have been like Ruth’s.
But Ruth would never have put on a man’s clothes or carried a gun. The thought would never have entered her mind.
Whatever was in this woman’s mind, she wasn’t going to offer him any more information without real encouragement. He braced himself on his elbows and tried to sit up. She flinched, controlling the involuntary movement so quickly that he doubted an ordinary man would have noticed.
“I’m…obliged, ma’am,” he said. “For what you did out there.”
Her jaw tightened, and she finally met his gaze. “It’s strange,” she said, “how quickly you’ve come from nearly dying to acting as if you weren’t hurt at all.”
No pleasantries with this lady. Not that he was inclined to them himself. But there was considerable suspicion in her words, as if she believed he’d feigned his condition.
But why would such a thought even occur to her? That she didn’t trust him was clear, and she was smart not to, but she had no call to think he’d had any reason to pretend.
Unless she’d sensed something different about him. Some regular folk did. Jacob had made a mistake in letting her see just how fast a werewolf could recover from serious injuries once he had the resources to do it.
Still, he figured it wouldn’t do much good to assure her that he wasn’t a threat, sick or not. He sure as hell wasn’t ready to get up and dance a jig anytime soon.
“The water and shelter helped, ma’am,” he said honestly. “But if it’s all the same to you…” He glanced at the pitcher on the stool. There was no chance that he would beg for another glass of water, but at least the words were coming easier now. “I’d like to stay here a little while longer.”
Her hand hovered near the grip of her gun. “Who were those men?” she asked.
Her question told him that she’d had precious little idea of what had been going on when she and the other women had rescued him. “They were…part of Leroy Blake’s gang. I was taking Leroy to Las Cruces when his partners—”
He stopped, wondering why he should admit how stupid and careless he’d been to let the likes of Leroy’s men get the drop on him.
His throat was too raw for laughter. It caught in his chest like a cough. Hell, she’d already seen him at his weakest. Maybe it was contempt he saw in her face. It would be more
