Westin’s Wyoming Read online

  He closed it quietly behind them. “I think I mentioned he wants to move stateside and get married.”

  His voice held a derisive note that irritated her. “Which you’ve already done,” she commented dryly.

  He stopped walking and caught her upper arms. Staring down at her, the moonlight highlighting his face, he looked unbearably handsome; she hoped he was about to kiss her. “True,” he said. “I have. I hear Bob’s girl is hot to fix me up with one of her friends, though. What do you think? Should I go along with it? Might be fun.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” she said. “Of course you should. Who knows? Maybe one of her friends will be the woman who tames the beast.”

  “I’m talking about dating, not marrying,” he said gently.

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I do know. You’ve made your position on the matter abundantly clear. Not that you had to. It’s not like I ever asked.”

  “As a matter of fact, you did ask. In fact, you have marriage on the brain.”

  Analise squared her shoulders. “Really, we should be attending to the business at hand.”

  “Yeah, which is what, exactly? What are you looking for, Princess?”

  She shook her head. He was back to calling her princess. Probably for the best.

  “I think it’s something you should think about,” he added, taking her hand and pulling her along.

  “I know exactly what I’m looking for.”

  “Do you?” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at her.

  “Certainly. My mother’s—”

  “I’m not talking about your mother,” he snapped as the shape of a snowmobile materialized by a clump of trees ahead of them. “I’m talking about you.”

  Analise clamped her mouth shut.

  THE MIDNIGHT RIDE was long and arduous and by the time two hours had passed, Pierce felt like he’d been thrown under a bus. He wasn’t as young as he used to be.

  They both got off the snowmobile gingerly, removing helmets and goggles and shaking out the kinks in their legs. They were at a higher elevation than when they’d started and though the sky was still clear and the stars close enough to touch, Pierce was surprised to find just how cold the wind was. He’d known there was a breeze by the difficulty of handling the machine, but its intensity amazed him.

  He untied the gear he’d brought along. When he turned back to Analise, he found her staring at him while holding her hood around her face with both hands. Her beauty struck him as it did every time he looked at her, though he could barely discern her facial features in the moonlight. He didn’t need to see them.

  It appeared she was talking to him but it was hard to tell as her clattering teeth and the wind howling through the evergreens snatched away her words. He leaned in closer, something he’d vowed he would never do again. He didn’t need any more memories of her. The ones he had would be trouble enough to get rid of.

  “What now?” she said.

  He spoke close to her face, resisting the urge to linger. “Now we climb. It’s not far.” He gestured up the face of the cliff at whose base they’d stopped. The cave was only twenty or so feet up a gentle incline.

  Was he nuts to bring her here? No doubt about it. Downright certifiable.

  Moonlight thankfully shone on the face of the mountain and reflected off the snow. He used the electric light only on rocky patches, keeping one hand on the rocks and the other on Analise. By the ease with which Analise kept up with him, it was obvious she was in fine shape.

  Well, he already knew that, didn’t he? Scroll through the ten thousand nude images of her and he could verify she was in top form. More information to forget.

  The entrance, when they finally reached it, was as dark as pitch and covered with a rudimentary slab of nailed-together boards, something new since he’d been here last. It was latched but not locked and swung inward easily. They hurried out of the wind and snow. It was soon pitch-black but refreshingly quiet and much warmer.

  There had been torches on the walls when he was a kid but he had no idea if they were still there so he turned on the flashlight right as Analise flicked on a small slender one of her own. He tried closing the door behind them though it caught on the snow that had tumbled in when they passed. The wind sent it yawning open.

  The passage they entered was about eight feet across and sure enough, the old kerosene torches were still in place. He took out a box of matches from his pocket and tried lighting one, surprised when a flame flared. Adam had always been interested in this cave, both from prospecting and historical aspects; apparently he kept the torches working.

  Analise pulled back her hood, sweeping her ebony hair away from her face with a gesture both efficient and graceful.

  “Tell me about this cave,” she said. “It was a burial site for an Indian tribe?”

  “Prehistoric Native Americans,” Pierce said, purposely turning away from her. He lit another torch. The light flickered in the air from the doorway, but less so than the one closer to the entrance.

  “Do you know which tribe?”

  The cave floor began a descent. “No. The name is lost. My great-grandfather came across the site when he was prospecting and recognized it for what it was. He made it a point to find out who they were and if their people still existed. My grandfather took over stewardship after his father died, and then my father and uncle. Now Adam is involved.”

  “And no one outside of your family knows about it?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Pierce said. “Locals must know, but as for outsiders, I think maybe you’re it.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “Actually, Adam is lobbying to turn the site over to the university for excavation. He’s convinced it needs to be formerly protected. My dad’s not having any of that. If it was good enough for his grandfather, then it’s good enough for him.”

  The rocks on the floor had been pushed aside, making the going easier. He lit another torch and glanced behind them. The passage looked eerie in the waving light. “There’s a cavern just ahead. Additional tunnels branch away from it.”

  “What kind of prospecting did your relatives do?” she asked as they stepped into the promised cavern. He flashed the light toward the ceiling far overhead and it glittered off stalactites covered with ice crystals. A flash across the floor revealed their counterparts, sparkling stalagmites.

  When Pierce had first seen the cavern as a small child, he’d thought it was the mouth of a monster, filled with jagged teeth just waiting to gnash him into little bits of flesh and bone. It still looked pretty damn scary in the dark.

  “Gold, but not enough to make anyone rich. I should know, I spent a lot of time looking for a quick way to fame and fortune. What’s that?” His light had just glinted off a large metal object.

  “It looks like a cart of some kind,” Analise said as they approached it.

  “I don’t remember this being here before. Maybe Cody is getting over his failed marriage by digging for gold. Now, watch where you step, the debris is deep in here.”

  But once again, the way seemed clearer than Pierce recalled, a virtual path with footsteps in the dirt that could have been made anytime in the past fifty years.

  “What’s in that direction?” Analise asked as she flashed her light to the left.

  “Another passage. It leads to a fissure that goes deeper under the ground. My great-grandfather started digging there after he found the Indian site. I gather he glimpsed some precious metal buried with a body.”

  “Wait, he unwrapped one of the bodies?”

  “Well, apparently, most of the cloth had already rotted away.” He turned to his side and flashed the light ahead of him. “The passage out of here is plenty wide but it’s kind of hidden behind an outcrop of rocks. There it is,” he added as his light picked out a looming dark shape.

  “If this ritual is the same as other recorded rituals, the dead person was wrapped in his own blankets and clothes very soon after d
eath. The women did this. It was they who transported the body and deposited it in one of the many smaller fissures in the next cavern.”

  “What did the men do?” Analise asked. He could hear her slipping on the rocks and reached out a hand to steady her.

  “They were busy burning his house and his possessions. At least that’s what happened in documented cultures and this seems to fit the pattern. Maybe if it was excavated, people could figure out how it all happened. All I know is family legend has it my great-grandfather found relics included in the binding, personal or ceremonial objects, he wasn’t sure which. He felt so bad about disturbing the place, he put it back exactly as it was and forbid anyone to talk about it or excavate it.”

  “So your father is simply respecting this long-ago edict,” she said as they finally stepped into a wider tunnel with a smoother floor.

  “I guess. That’s Dad. Honor and duty.” He paused for a second before adding, “Stuff that’s right up your alley, Princess.”

  When he realized she’d stopped walking, he turned to face her, flashing the light briefly across her face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, everything is peachy keen,” he said.

  “You know that’s not true,” she insisted and she sounded irritated.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know—”

  “I tried to warn you that making love would not change my situation,” she said so softly it was little more than a whisper.

  “This is all in your imagination, Princess.”

  “It’s my imagination that you’re calling me ‘Princess’ again instead of ‘Analise’ and baiting me with tales of other women?”

  “Do I detect a little jealousy?”

  “Of course not. I have no hold on you.”

  “Ditto.”

  She glared at him. “You told me to ask myself what I’m looking for in some grand metaphorical way. Well, turn the question around. What are you looking for?”

  He shoved his free hand in his pocket and stared at her poorly lit face. He should say something.

  She filled the silence. “You’re right. I do honor duty and maybe in such a way as it seems silly to you. You live for the moment. You don’t allow yourself to project forward because you can’t control what lies ahead. But that kind of control is an illusion and it guts the essence of living.”

  He laughed, the sound too loud in this deep, dark place. “Me?” he said. “Me a control freak? Coming from you, that’s rich.”

  “I am not a—”

  “You most certainly are.”

  They stared at each other until he rubbed his forehead. “If I’m acting surly it’s probably because I haven’t really slept in days. I knew you were spoken for when I met you. I accepted that fact when I made love to you. Am I happy about it? No. But I’ve moved on.”

  “And now you’re going to have a whole company to run by yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “So let me ask you this. Are you going toward something or away from something else or do you even know?”

  “I know exactly what I want.”

  “And that is to build a life that assures you’ll never have the time or energy to create a family who loves and needs you?”

  “Do you want to know what I really want?” he said, his voice low and his temper spent. He took a step toward her and she backed away until she hit the wall of the cave behind her. He looked down into her eyes and it was like falling into one of the cave’s seemingly bottomless chasms.

  “Let me tell you in no uncertain terms,” he said. And then added, “Better yet, I’ll show you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It all happened so fast that later Pierce wouldn’t be able to remember who had made the first move.

  One second they were facing each other and the next they were locked together. His flashlight fell to the ground and rolled to the side. He didn’t know where hers had gone, only that it was very dark and the only sounds were the ones they created.

  Her kisses turned his blood to molten lava that coursed through his veins, engorged his groin, thrummed in his heart—blood on fire, scorching him, scarring him for life.

  She did this to him. Brought out the insanity. He could feel her presence from across a room; having her in his arms drove him wild. And what was really intoxicating was that he had the same effect on her. He could feel it in the touch of her hands as she reached under his jacket.

  He all but exploded when she rubbed her pelvis against his.

  “Oh, Analise,” he whispered urgently.

  “Don’t speak, just love me,” she said, moaning. Her fingers slipped inside his pants. When he pushed aside her underwear he found moistness and it drove the fiery blood right into his brain.

  He pulled her jeans down her legs. His came next and yet somehow the kissing never stopped, never wavered, her tongue and his were the same, intertwined.

  He entered her with a ravenous need that ate him from the inside out, and when she finally threw her head back and cried out, it was as though she pulled the climax from him, as well.

  For what seemed an eternity, they stood together, wrapped in each other’s arms, his face buried in her hair, breathing ragged. But eventually, she moved, and he lifted his head, suddenly once again aware of their surroundings and a little astounded by what had happened.

  She disengaged herself from his arms. He heard her adjusting her clothes as he did his, trying to put themselves back together again, much as victims struggle to create order after the chaos of a hurricane.

  “Analise, I—”

  “Oh, Pierce,” she said, her lips brushing his cheek. “Maybe now we can be friends again. Maybe now you won’t be so angry with me.”

  He started to protest that he hadn’t been angry. Frustrated, hell, yes. But angry? Maybe.

  Leaning down, he scooped up the flashlight. He wanted to shine it on her face but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure he could bear to look at her ever again.

  “We’re both a mess,” she said.

  “I’m sure you look ravishing. You always look ravishing.”

  “I’m not talking about on the outside.”

  “Ah. Yeah, well, it’s hard to argue that. You’re betrothed to a man you don’t love and I’m a confirmed bachelor who can’t get enough of one woman.”

  She touched his face. “You shouldn’t listen to me. What do I know about life? Everything I said about you is also true about me, maybe more so.”

  “What do we do about it?”

  She was silent for several seconds, then she leaned in against his chest, her head tucked under his chin, her arms wrapped around his torso. There was resolve in her voice when she spoke. “We find my mother’s possessions, I destroy them, and then we get on with our separate lives. What else can we do?”

  The answer seemed pretty obvious to him. She could break off with this Ricard character and come live a vagabond life with him. He would make her so content she would never miss having children. And if her parents disowned her and refused to see her much as his father had turned away Pierce, then he would be enough for her.

  He took a deep breath as the absurdity of this scenario sank in. Analise’s country and family were as much a part of her as her silken hair and crystal-blue eyes.

  “And if I rethought my position on marriage, what would happen then, Analise?”

  She was silent for a long time. She finally said, “I don’t know. It’s not that easy.”

  “The thought of you spending your life with a man who doesn’t adore you makes me sick inside.”

  “Pierce—”

  “How would you feel if that’s what was in store for me?”

  It took her a moment to mumble, “Sick inside.”

  He gently pushed her away but at the last moment, caught her hand. “We’re almost there. Stay close to me.”

  THE PASSION THAT had swept Analise into Pierce’s arms
and the glow that had warmed her heart once it was spent began to trickle away as they moved down the gloomy tunnel. It began to take twists and turns she barely noticed. For a few moments she had belonged to the man she loved, and maybe for the first time she realized how monumental that was.

  Was it possible to fall in love with someone in three days? A week ago she would have said no. Now she suspected it was. Pierce Westin was in her heart and always would be even if she never saw him again after today.

  How could she live with that? How could she marry Ricard when she’d given every part of herself that really mattered to another man?

  Still lost in her thoughts, she bumped into Pierce as they rounded more rocks and came to a stop in front of another rustic wooden door with a crude latch. “It used to be locked,” Pierce said as he slid the wooden bar out of the hasp. “I’m surprised Adam doesn’t keep it secure now.”

  “It’s so remote, what’s the good of a lock?” she mused as he pushed on the door.

  “Good point. Probably Adam’s way of thinking, too.”

  Their flashlights illuminated another cavern, this one slightly smaller than the one they’d left behind. The sides were riddled with crevasses and fissures. More or less in the center was a scattered pile of large rocks and south of that, a deep rift.

  “Watch your step,” Pierce said.

  She pulled up short and flashed her light into the rift. “Whoa, that thing looks deep.”

  “About a hundred feet. When Cody took calculus we dropped rocks into it and timed how long it took them to hit bottom.”

  Pierce shone the light on the wall closest to him and revealed a torch mounted in the rock. He lit three more at intervals around the cavern until weak light flickered against rock walls, danced across the jagged floor. On his way back to her side, he bent over and scooped something up, playing his light into one of the crevasses that ran straight into the wall.

  Back at her side, he used the flashlight to reveal a scrap of woven cloth and a small rock.

  The cloth looked old and rotted. The rock appeared to have been carved. “What are these things?”