The Tender Stranger

He nodded. “Yes, and she probably would be ashamed of my manners right now. I beg your pardon, ma’am. There are more of us, people like you and me, than I could begin to count, living in the present and trying to forget the past. The West is full of folks looking for a new life.”

“I’d rather not speak of the past,” Erin told him, more gently, since he’d deigned to apologize.

“Your choice.” His nod was almost genteel, and she answered it with a like gesture.

She felt the heat of his gaze as he faced her, his eyes skimming her face before his mouth twitched in an admiring grin. “Is there any coffee left in the pot?” he asked, turning to the stove. “Let me get you some.”

Erin rose, needing respite from those eyes that regarded her so freely. She shook her head, denying his offer. “I’ll get it. You need to hang your britches over that line. They’ll never get dry, there on the floor. Either that or drape them over the chair in front of the oven door.”

“You’re right. My other things are in the shed, and I don’t think the weather is going to break for a while. I’m reduced to the quilt, it seems, for now.” He bent, picking up the pants he’d shed, and spread them across the back of the second chair. The underwear he draped on the line, which by now was drooping precariously close to the stove.

“I’ll add some wood,” Erin said. “I need to put my soup on to cook for dinner.” She poured a cup of steaming coffee for Quinn and motioned to the cream. “There’s plenty if you’d like some to lighten up the flavor. It’s pretty strong.”

He nodded and splashed a dollop into his cup, watching her as she dug potatoes from a sack she’d hung from the rafters. “Don’t you think we sound pretty formal for a pair of refugees from a storm, sharing your cabin, me wearing your quilt?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “You’re the refugee. As soon as the storm is over, you’ll be gone.”

He sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim of his cup. “I’ve been thinking about that. You know, I’d feel a lot better if you agreed to let me stay on at least long enough to help you with the supplies, like I mentioned before.”

She turned back to the potatoes, considering his offer. To all appearances, he seemed to be a gentleman, though what such a creature was doing roaming the mountains of Colorado was another puzzle. Perhaps he was a miner. Perhaps.

“Did you work the mines for a long time?” she asked, depositing three potatoes on the table. Knife in hand, she began peeling them, awaiting his reply.

“Long enough to know it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.” His tone was dry, his mouth twisted in a grin. Leaning back in his chair, he allowed the quilt to slide from his shoulders, freeing both arms. “How about you? Were you born in Denver?”

She shook her head. “No, back east.”

“St. Louis?” he prodded.

The man was downright irritating, she decided. Him with all his talk about good manners. “No.” Her reply was a single syllable, firm and to the point.

He ducked his head, hiding a grin, almost.

“I’m a widow. I’m going to have a child, and I like living alone. Does that answer all your questions?”

“No, ma’am, it sure doesn’t. But I suspect that’s all I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

“If I wanted to be neighborly I’d have found a place with houses on either side of me,” she said quietly. “I came here to be alone, Quinn.”

“Just one more question, Erin? Please?”

She looked up at him. He was about as persistent a man as she’d ever met up with. “Just one,” she said finally.

“Who’s going to help you when the baby comes?” His playful look was gone. Even the admiring light was dimmed as his eyes darkened with concern.

Her heart thudded heavily within her breast. The bottom line, the end of the road she traveled, and he’d nailed her right where she was most vulnerable. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided what I’ll do when the time comes.”

His brow rose. “Seems like that would have been the first thing you thought of.”

No, the first thing had been escape. Finding a place to hide, where no one could seek her out. A sanctuary for herself and her child. And of all the godforsaken spots she could have come up with, she’d ended up on the side of a mountain west of Denver. How ironic.

She laughed, a strained sound that made him wince.

“Erin?” Quinn tasted her name, relishing the breathless sound of it. His gaze appreciated the look of her, his mind wondered at the unexpected appeal to his senses. He hadn’t looked for this attraction, and yet it could not be denied. She was the quarry, he the hunter; her capture the goal.

Yet for the life of him, for whatever reason, he’d lost any incentive he had to cart her back to New York. For the first time in years he found himself willing to put his own needs and concerns on the back burner. All in the interests of a pregnant woman who had a past—but not much of a future, from what he could see.

Erin moved quickly, rinsing the potatoes at the pump, then slicing them into a pan, ignoring the sound of his voice speaking her name. The last of the bacon was cut into small pieces, then dropped into the skillet to fry up. An onion, chopped with rapid slashes of her knife, joined the bacon and sizzled in the grease.

“Erin? I have an idea. Why don’t you hear me out?” So quickly his thoughts had spun out of control. Watching her, listening to her, he’d already juggled his plans twice. Now Quinn was about to commit himself in a new measure, perhaps allow a time of grace in which to consider the woman.

She stirred the bacon in the skillet, her back straight, only the proud tilt of her head making him aware that she listened to his words.

“I’ll take you to town and help you get supplies, then bring you back here. That’ll give you a bit of space to maneuver, not having to do it on your own.”

“You’ve already made that offer,” she said crisply.

“But you never gave me an answer,” he reminded her.

“Let me think about it.”

He drained the coffee cup and rose, walking to the window. “It’s not going to let up much. I think we’re stuck inside for a while.”

“Do you like rice pudding?”

“My mother used to make it for a special treat when I was a boy,” he said, his memory of that time fresh in his mind as he spoke the words.

“I’ve got a lot of milk and eggs to use up. We’ll have some for dinner.”

“I hope the rain lets up in time for you to milk Daisy tonight. She won’t be happy if she has to wait till morning.”

Erin turned from the stove. “I’11 have to go out there, rainy or not. 1 couldn’t do that to the poor thing. I can’t imagine anything more cruel.”

Which was what he’d had in mind earlier, he reminded himself. Leaving the cow to fend for herself while he hustled her owner down the mountain and back to the big city. He traced a circle on the steamy glass of the window. It seemed that this issue was going to be more complicated than he’d thought at first.

Even if he went through with his original plan, there would be no carrying her off from here without a bit more forethought involved. She wasn’t in any shape for him to instigate a battle. In fact, fighting with the girl was not what he had in mind. That image brought a sense of shame to the surface.

If he were to follow his baser instincts, Quinn’s hands would touch more than her shoulders. His eyes would do more than take in the beauty of her profile, the soft, tempting fall of hair that caught shimmering highlights from the lantern.

How he could so easily overlook the rounding evidence of her impending motherhood was beyond him. He’d never thought to find a woman in her condition so all-fired appealing. And yet she was. More so, in fact, than any other female he’d come across in years.

If Ted Wentworth could only see him today, within arm’s reach of his quarry and unable to commit himself to her capture. Forty-eight hours ago, two short days past, he had been hot on her trail and ready to roll back to Denver, Erin Wentworth in hand.

Quinn’s common sense told him he’d had no concept of a woman in Erin’s condition. He could no more sling her on a horse and head down the mountain than he could flap his arms and fly. There didn’t seem to be any way out of it. He’d have to let Ted Wentworth know what was going on, and then make plans to winter here. At least until Erin had the baby and they were both ready to travel.

Would he be ready to earn money at her expense then? Or ever, for that matter?

The rain let up just before dark. His clothes were as dry as they were going to get, Quinn decided. He hurried to put them on as soon as Erin left the house to go to the shed, wearing boots that came almost to her knees. They’d been a legacy of the old man who lived here before her, and although she scuffled along to keep them on, they served the purpose, she’d told him.