Winter Fire by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

to keeping it clean. I like that in a man.”
    The murmuring voice washed over Case as gently as the cloth. He floated in a place that was neither sleep nor waking, absorbing the gentle words and touches like desert ground soaking up water after a long drought.
    â€œYour hair is all black and cool and sleek, like a horse’s mane, only much silkier. It’s as pretty as your eyelashes.”
    Being described as pretty in any way at all amused him, but nothing of his reaction showed. Like youth, laughter had fled from him after the war.
    The delicate, musical sounds of Sarah rinsing and wringing out the washcloth were like her voice. Soothing and arousing. Real and unreal. Close and far beyond reach.
    â€œMaybe I’ll shave you in a few days, too,” she continued in a low voice. “But not your mustache. It’s longer than the new beard, so you must have it all the time.”
    Warm cloth and gentle words flowed over Case. He drifted closer and closer to real sleep with a trust that would have shocked him if he had noticed.
    But he didn’t. He was as bemused by Sarah’s care as every other wary, wild creature that had fallen into her hands.
    The flannel sheet slid down to his hips, disturbing him. He made an indistinct sound of protest. His right hand moved slightly, as though seeking to pull up the cover again.
    â€œHush,” she murmured. “It’s all right, Case. I’m just cleaning the dirt off of you. Then I’ll let you be.”
    His hand relaxed. He let out a long breath.
    â€œThat’s it,” she crooned. “That’s just right. Keep sleeping and heal up until you’re strong enough to fly again. Though you won’t fly, will you? You’ll just get on Cricket and ride out…”
    The murmur of water and Sarah’s voice blended in Case’s mind. He drifted again toward the half-world that was neither sleeping nor waking.
    Warm, wet, sweetly abrasive, the washrag licked over his arms and chest, removing evidence of his painful journey across the cabin’s dirt floor.
    â€œCulpepper…sneaking up…behind.”
    Case didn’t know he had spoken aloud until Sarah answered him with words and gentling motions of the washrag on his chest.
    â€œYou’re safe at Lost River ranch,” she murmured. “You’re safe with me. Sleep, Case. I won’t let anyone harm you.”
    Distantly he realized that he had heard variations of those words when pain and fever had gripped him in a vise that he thought would end only with his death.
    Safe at Lost River ranch .
    Sleep, Case .
    You’re safe with me .
    His breathing deepened and slowed to match the easy movement of the hands that cared for him so sweetly. Relaxed despite his hungry sexuality, he let the rose-scented dream of peace close around him.
    He made no protest when he sensed the loincloth loosen. All he cared was that sweetness continue. Soothed, aroused, nearly asleep, wholly alive, he knew only that a moist warmth stroked him. He gave himself to it, for it was what he needed more than breath itself.
    Pleasure tingled over him, pulsed like a slowly beating heart, and set him adrift again.
    With a sigh that was almost a groan, Case fell headlong into sleep, leaving a wide-eyed Sarah behind.
    â€œWhat in heaven’s name…?” she asked.
    Such a thing had never happened when she nursed Ute back to his feet, and he had been shot up even worse than Case.
    â€œInfection?” she whispered.
    She bent over his torso and breathed in an indefinable mixture of salt and rain and man and rose soap.
    â€œThank God,” she said in a low voice.
    Whatever had happened to him, it hadn’t been the result of infection.
    Then she saw that his arousal was slowly subsiding. Her husband had looked like that when he finally got satisfaction from his silent, rigid wife.
    Realization stained her cheeks in a wave of heat that was both embarrassment and something