Early Dawn by Catherine Anderson Page B

frightened had come to seem normal to Eden over the last five days, but, oh, God, how she wished her brothers would suddenly appear up ahead of them. She imagined Ace’s strong arms enfolding her in a hard hug, how she would love to hear David’s deep, reassuring laugh. She would feel so safe with her brothers all around her. With the Keegan/Paxton tribe to defend her, no one would dare hurt her again.
    But her brothers didn’t appear, and though Eden tried, she couldn’t conjure them up. She was alone with a man who might be a thief, murderer, and rapist, and more of his ilk could be closing in fast.
     
    When dawn finally broke, Eden was appalled when she finally could see her rescuer. He had the look of a saddle tramp, his leather jacket stained with sweat and ground-in dirt, his tan Stetson battered and filthy. He also had a lean, razor-sharp look about him, as if he had survived for months on dried meat, death, and little else. He was edgy as well, glancing frequently over his shoulder and scanning the slopes at each side of the trail, as if he expected to be shot in the back at any moment. Clearly, danger had been his constant companion for far too long.
    A scruff of sable brown whiskers covered the lower part of his face, telling her it had been days, if not weeks, since a straight razor had touched his jaw. A jagged scar angled from the shaggy line of his beard across his lean cheek to the outside corner of his left eye. Another scar bisected his left eyebrow. But what she found most frightening were his eyes. They were the deep azure of a summer sky on a clear, hot day, only they looked more like ice chips, chilling her blood when he stopped his horse and turned in the saddle to stare at her.
    “This looks like as good a place as any to stop for a rest.” He inclined his head at a frothy stream that flowed through a nearby cut of rocks in a stand of ponderosa pines. Rocky Mountain maple and sandbar willows peppered its moist banks. “The horses could use a drink, and so could we.”
    As he spoke, the left corner of his mouth remained still, as if that side of his face had been paralyzed by the injury that had scarred him so badly. Ace had a similar affliction, compliments of a bone-shattering blow to his cheek from a rifle butt when he was only a boy, but never in Eden’s recollection had her eldest brother looked so disreputable.
    Clenching her teeth against the pain in her side, Eden twisted to look behind them. “I don’t mind stopping for water, but I don’t need to rest. What if the Sebastians are right behind us?”
    He swung down from the saddle. “They aren’t. And I don’t care whether or not you need to rest. I’m stopping for the horses and mule. Unlike the Sebastians, I don’t believe in running my animals to death.”
    “How can you be sure they aren’t right behind us?” she asked.
    “Because I scattered their horses to hell and gone, and we’ve been riding steady ever since.” He drew off his hat to dust it on his denim pant leg. Had it been clean, his dark brown hair might have hung straight as an arrow to his shoulders, but instead it had separated into stiff, oily shanks, almost as greasy as his jacket. He glanced up at her. “We won’t be staying here long, if that’s your worry. I just want to get the weight off the horses’ backs and let them take a breather. You need help down?”
    Eden had endured being touched for five long days. She’d get down by herself or die trying. With shaky hands, she grabbed the saddle horn, using it for balance as she dismounted. Supporting her weight with her arms sent a white-hot pain lancing through her ribs that made her light-headed. When her legs felt steady enough to support her weight, she stepped away from the gelding. “You can’t be sure their horses didn’t return to the camp.”
    “After firing those shots, I’m fairly sure.” He turned his back on her and began unsaddling Smoky. “Of course, nothing’s certain in this