Only 05 - Autumn Lover

bell.”
    “When was this?” Elyssa asked.
    “Morning.”
    As Morgan spoke, his glance went from Elyssa to Hunter. Morgan’s shrewd brown eyes didn’t miss the telltale red of her cheeks. The color could have come from rouge, except that Elyssa didn’t wear makeup. Itcould have been sun or windburn, but Morgan suspected the color came from something closer to hand.
    Hunter’s beard stubble, to be precise. A girl with skin as tender and fair as Elyssa’s showed each loving abrasion of a man’s cheek.
    “She can’t get far on foot,” Elyssa said.
    “She isn’t on foot,” Morgan answered. “She took that big bay mare we caught running wild last week, the one with the fresh Slash River brand on her hip.”
    Elyssa bit back a curse. “That mare was one of my mother’s favorites. Thoroughbred and Arab. I had hopes for her as a broodmare.”
    “No one ever accused Utes of lacking an eye for good horseflesh,” Hunter said sardonically.
    Elyssa thought of the battered, bloodied Indian girl who had suffered so much at the Culpeppers’ hands. Elyssa couldn’t blame the girl for taking a Ladder S horse and running back to her own people at the first opportunity.
    “One horse more or less won’t break us,” Elyssa said after a few moments. “Let her go and worry about the cattle.”
    Hunter and Morgan exchanged a glance. Hunter nodded minutely.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Morgan said. “I’ve got a bunch in mind.”
    He spun his pony and cantered off toward the marsh.
    “What are you two planning?” Elyssa asked.
    Hunter’s head snapped toward her.
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “Just what I said.”
    For a moment Hunter considered lying to Elyssa. Then he saw the clear, measuring intelligence in her blue-green eyes and knew it wouldn’t work.
    “Nothing you need to worry about,” Hunter said.
    “Rot.”
    Despite Elyssa’s waiting silence, he didn’t speak again.
    The look in her eyes changed. Bleak acceptance replaced the memories of intimacy.
    “You don’t trust me at all, do you?” she said neutrally. “Not even a little bit.”
    Hunter’s hand closed over Leopard’s reins just before Elyssa could turn the stallion away.
    “I didn’t want to worry you,” Hunter said.
    “Of course.”
    The polite agreement in Elyssa’s voice nudged Hunter’s uncertain temper.
    “Damn it, Sassy. What good would it do for you to fret about the Ladder S raiding the Culpeppers?”
    “None at all, from your point of view.”
    “To hell with me. I’m worried about you! There’s too much on your plate already, what with the Culpeppers and Penny still sick and finding out Bill is your father and the missing livestock and the battle over that Indian girl and…”
    Hunter’s voice trailed into silence.
    “Taking my first lover?” Elyssa finished.
    Curtly Hunter nodded.
    She gave him a haunting, bittersweet smile.
    “Fancy man,” Elyssa said caressingly, “you are by far the best part of what is on my plate.”
    Hunter winced at the nickname but didn’t protest it. Since he had felt Elyssa’s wild, sweet mouth all over him, he couldn’t react with real anger when she called him “fancy man.”
    “I wish we were back at the cave,” Hunter said in a low voice, “and I was bathing you again, tasting you again. Cinnamon and cream and fire, a kind of fire I’d only dreamed of until you.”
    Elyssa’s hand went to Hunter’s mouth, stilling his words. The trembling of her fingers against his lips toldHunter that she remembered as clearly as he did.
    His tongue slid between her fingers.
    “Hunter,” she said shakily. “Don’t.”
    “Why? We both like it.”
    “But we can’t do anything about it!”
    “You’d be surprised what two can do on horseback,” he said, his voice teasing.
    Inviting.
    Elyssa bit back a groan.
    “You’re used to this kind of thing,” she said. “I’m not.”
    “Used to it?” Hunter shook his head emphatically. “Weren’t you listening, Sassy? I’ve never wanted a woman more after I’ve had her than before I did. Never.”
    Elyssa’s eyes widened. “But that’s the way I feel with you. Each time more. Isn’t that, er, customary?”
    “Not for me,” Hunter said. “It’s damned addictive, though. Like you.”
    Ruefully he shifted in the saddle, trying to accommodate his sudden, surging arousal.
    “I think,” Hunter said carefully, “we’d better change the subject. Unless, of course, you’d like to climb up in the saddle with me right