Only 05 - Autumn Lover

rains.
    Elyssa stood in the stirrups, looking for any sign of cattle amid the brush and piñons. The dogs had come up this narrow, damp ravine and not come back.
    She wasn’t worried about the dogs. They were fully capable of working alone. Probably they had scrambled up out of the bottom of the ravine to search another of the thousand nameless gullies where cattle fed and sheltered.
    As Elyssa settled into the saddle once more, her thoughts turned again to the moonlit garden. Though Hunter’s embrace had lasted only a few moments, those moments had turned her world upside down.
    No man with only lust on his mind would have kissed me so tenderly at first. And then so wildly .
    And then stopped .
    Just stopped .
    A blush crept up Elyssa cheeks. Part of the color came from embarrassment at the memory of how wanton she had been in Hunter’s arms. Part of the flush was anger at what Hunter had said while he buttoned her bodice.
    And most of the heat in Elyssa’s cheeks came from passion, pure and deep and potent.
    Without warning Leopard’s head came up hard. Ears pricked, he stood motionless for an instant.
    With an odd, sighing grumble, a piece of the rim slumped away from the side of the ravine.
    The stallion spun on his hocks, leaped, and lunged frantically up the steep slope on the side opposite from the avalanche. The abrupt, lurching movements unseated Elyssa. Without knowing it, she screamed. The scream was cut off when she hit the ground and tumbled head over heels.
    Even before Elyssa stopped rolling, she sensed that she was safe from the avalanche. The stallion’s catlike quickness had already taken her beyond the tangled rush of mud and stone that was sweeping down the ravine.
    Elyssa’s chilling scream brought Hunter at a dead gallop from the next gully to the north, spurring Bugle Boy every step of the way. What he saw when he entered the ravine was a tangle of debris, a spotted stud standing free of the mess, and an empty saddle.
    “ Elyssa !”
    Nothing answered his cry.
    A fear gripped Hunter that was like nothing he had ever felt. Heedless of the danger to himself, he sent Bugle Boy along the ragged, treacherous edge of the landslide.
    Elyssa can’t be buried underneath all that .
    She can’t be .
    But she very well could, and Hunter knew it better than most men. The war had taught him how indifferent death was to human emotion.
    “Sassy! Where are you?”
    This time a faint groan answered Hunter’s call. He reined Bugle Boy around with a fierce movement and sent him scrambling over to the far side of the ravine.
    Elyssa lay on her back, tangled among willows. Her arms were flung out and her eyes were closed.
    Before Bugle Boy could come to a lunging stop, Hunter kicked free of the stirrups and knelt by Elyssa’s side. He could see that she was struggling for breath. At first it reassured him.
    Then it frightened him.
    “Sassy?” Hunter asked gently. “Honey? Where does it hurt?”
    At first Elyssa thought she was in bed, dreaming.
    Surely she couldn’t be awake and hearing such tender concern in Hunter’s voice.
    She opened her eyes, prepared to be disappointed. The concern on Hunter’s face was even greater than in his deep voice.
    Shakily Elyssa caught his face between her hands and smiled despite the pallor of her lips. Knowing that Hunter cared about her was a warmth stealing through the chill in her bones.
    “I’m—fine,” she said raggedly.
    As Elyssa spoke, she stroked Hunter’s face. It was meant as a gesture of reassurance, but it quickly became something more.
    She loved the masculine texture of the stubble that lay beneath his freshly shaved skin. Her pleasure showed in her lingering touch, in her face, in her blue-green eyes searching his.
    Hunter took a breath that was almost as jerky as Elyssa’s.
    “You screamed,” he said hoarsely.
    “I—fell. Knocked—the wind—right out.”
    “You don’t hurt anywhere?”
    She shook her head. “Just—here.”
    Hunter followed the line of Elyssa’s fingers to a point right below her breasts.
    “Here?” he asked.
    He brushed the back of his fingers over Elyssa’s breastbone.
    Her quickly indrawn breath owed nothing to pain and everything to the memory of Hunter’s mouth caressing her breasts.
    “Hunter,” Elyssa whispered. “I—”
    With a throttled sound, Hunter lowered his mouth and took her trembling lips in a kiss that he meant to be comforting.
    And it would have been, if she hadn’t moaned and shivered