Mountain Moonlight - By Jane Toombs Page 0,10

his sleeping bag, the one she was leaning against.

"I'm going to turn in, Mom," he said. "We've been climbing all day and the higher elevation makes you tired, you know."

She didn't argue, aware that, though he might be using it as an excuse for feeling sleepy so early in the evening, he actually was telling the truth. He took his sleeping bag to the tent, leaving her still sitting but now uncomfortably. She was trying to gather the energy as well as the courage-- it was going to hurt--to clamber to her feet when Bram came back to the fire carrying her unrolled sleeping bag and the old gray sweat suit she'd tucked inside it.

"You planning to sleep in these?" he asked.

Taken aback, she stammered, "Uh--yes."

He dropped the clothes on her lap. "Get into them." Before she could think what to do or say, he walked off, making it clear he didn't plan to stay and watch.

She shrugged, wincing at the soreness in her shoulders, and thought, why not? I have to get undressed sooner or later and it'll be easier here than in the tent.

When Bram returned, she was standing with the sweats on and trying to decide if she could manage to bend over and retrieve the clothes she'd discarded. He knelt and rolled her clothes into a bundle, then smoothed her sleeping bag. "Lie on this," he ordered.

She stared at him in confusion.

He half-smiled and pulled a tube from his jacket pocket. "Liniment. Good for sore muscles. Don't forget you have to get back on Susie Q tomorrow."

Vala grimaced at the thought.

"This liniment won't cure you," he added, "but you have my personal guarantee it'll help."

Deciding she couldn't feel any worse, Vala eased herself down onto the sleeping bag, lying on her stomach. She tensed when he lifted her sweat shirt and put his hand on her bare back.

"Relax," he ordered.

She tried to obey. His hands were warm, the liniment cool at first, then, as he rubbed it in, pleasantly hot.

He kneaded her muscles with an incredibly gentle touch.

"That feels good," she murmured, thinking, as he went on to her lower back, that perhaps it felt a little too good for her peace of mind.

Good wasn't exactly the word he'd choose, Bram thought as his hands stroked the curve of her hip. When he decided the liniment might help her, it hadn't occurred to him just what the treatment was going to do to him.

Her skin was so soft and smooth, satiny under his fingers and when he cupped her rounded buttocks he found himself imagining her in his arms, tight against him while he held her like this.

Keep your mind on what you're doing, Hunter, he warned himself as desire began to throb insistently through him. You're supposed to be a masseur at the moment, not a lover. Why was touching Vala different than touching any other woman? Because she'd been a mystery he'd never had a chance to solve?

He'd thought he came on this trip for the kid's sake, but he had to admit that sure as hell wasn't the way it looked now.

Chapter 3

Vala slept so soundly she didn't hear Davis get up, dress and leave the tent. She roused to a loud clanging, sitting up abruptly, then wincing as her sore muscles protested the sudden move.

"Breakfast, Mom!" Davis shouted from somewhere outside the tent. She wondered if he was the one who'd banged on a pan with a spoon or if that was Bram's idea of fun.

"I'm awake," she called back. "Be there in a jiff."

She dressed as quickly as she could, ignoring the twinges, trying to convince herself riding would prove easier today, and joined the two males. The morning air held a touch of crispness that she knew the sun would soon banish.

"Bram's oatmeal is way cool," Davis informed her. "He puts cinnamon in it."

Vala raised her eyebrows. Davis eating oatmeal? The stuff he called gooey yuck when she tried to serve it at home?

"Sticks to the ribs, with or without cinnamon," Bram said. "Good on the trail. Right, partner?"

Davis nodded with enthusiasm.

Once finished with breakfast, Bram said, "Today's dessert is a message from the chain fruit cholla." He pointed at a gangly-looking cactus to their left. "The cholla warns, 'Brush against me and I'll break off a chunk of myself to attach to you. Trust me, you won't like it."

"Isn't that what we used to call jumping cactus?" Vala asked.

He nodded.

"Did you guys really go to high school together like