Chapter Eight
Hawk lay there a moment, still catching his breath, one arm looped loosely around Sinead’s waist. He drew in a deep breath.
The scent of the mountains flooded him, a scent a person wouldn’t know unless they spent time in them. A scent he’d missed like hell after years in the military. The first thing he did when he returned to Wyoming was head straight into the mountains just to breathe the air.
But mixed with the familiar smell was Sinead. Clean, faint citrus, and mint toothpaste.
She wiggled beneath him and he realized she wasn’t exactly lying in a comfortable spot. He shifted to the side and propped himself on his elbow to study her properly.
Her hair tumbled over the ground, her skin still wearing the flush of release. Her lips were puffy from kissing…and a faint red streak on her throat where he’d gotten a bit rough.
A possessive satisfaction wove through him, and he couldn’t hold back a smile.
She eyed him. “What are you smiling at?”
“You.” He wasn’t going to tell her that she wore his beard burn.
Her chest gave a little heave, and then she sat up and reached for her clothes. With the same brisk efficiency she brought to everything else, she began to dress.
She pulled her shirt over her head and the soft, unguarded version of her from a few minutes ago slipped beneath the tougher, composed version of Sinead.
He watched the transformation and felt a low pang of disappointment that she was shifting gears so fast even though he knew they were burning daylight.
“I take it you’re not a cuddler.”
She tossed him a look. “I’d like to get washed up.”
“I think there’s a little water in my pack.”
She slipped on her boots and bent to tie them, movements quick and sure. Around a curtain of hair, she met his gaze. “Get dressed. I found something.”
He didn’t argue. As he pulled his clothes on with a speed he learned from dressing in full gear in under a minute, he caught her glancing at him.
That same possessive pride rippled through him, something he rarely felt with a woman—he never cared to stake a claim on many. But the smoldering glances stolen from lowered lashes stirred him in a place much higher than the body part he’d just used.
When he had to tug his fly to fit around his still stiff cock, she definitely noticed, if the pink in her cheeks was anything to go by.
After he was ready, she gave him her full attention. “Come with me.”
He moved forward. “Where are we going?”
“I’ll show you.”
“I’m always in the lead. That’s how having a bodyguard works.”
She compressed her lips. “I’ve already checked this place out and it’s fine. Besides, I’ve got my bear spray on me.”
Though it went against his instincts and probably broke a few Black Heart Security rules too, he let her guide him through a cluster of bushes. After a few more steps, she pointed at a patch of dirt.
“There. See how the ground’s darker? It looks damp. I think there could be water down there. A stream or a pool of rainwater.”
He had to admit she was right. They needed to replenish their water stores, and the thought of a quick bath sounded good despite the prospect of icy mountain water. “Let’s pack up camp and we’ll take a small detour.”
They broke the tent down together, and while he rolled it and strapped it to his pack frame, she tore apart the small tripod over the fire which had burned to ash while they were otherwise occupied.
In a few minutes they had the camp reduced to their two packs and a stamped-out fire pit.
She brushed her hair over her shoulders. “I think we got it all.”
He threw out his senses before they took off, listening for the movement of any animal larger than a rabbit, or any sign that they weren’t alone. Confident it was safe, he led the way toward the spot of damp soil.
The dark patch of earth disappeared from sight now and then, but as they descended the mountain, he saw Sinead was right. A small mountain stream wound around the side of the face.
She let out a small gasp behind him. “Water!”
He threw her a grin over his shoulder and quickened his pace, leading the way to a spring bubbling from a shelf of rock.
She surged ahead of him, eager, and her boot caught hard in a snarl of exposed roots crossing the trail. She pitched forward with a startled yelp and Hawk lunged, catching her by the arm a half second before her face met rock.
She hung there a moment, breathing hard, boot still wedged tight. “Okay. That could’ve been bad.”
“You all right?” He crouched, working the root to loosen it, but her foot was wedged tight.
He looked up into her eyes. “Do you trust me?”
She gave him a wary glance. “Depends on what you’re about to do.”
He swung his pack off one shoulder, enough to reach into a pocket. He wrapped his fingers around the handle of his ax and pulled it free.
“Oh no.” Sinead pushed backward, as if she could crawl out from under the root.
“Sinead. This is the only way. Look away and don’t move.”
The root was so close to her ankle that it left no room for error. Hawk had no intention of missing the mark.
“Hawk—”
“On three.”
She nodded wildly, latching on to the modicum of control he offered.
“One. Two.”
He brought the blade down on the root and it snapped just as Sinead let out a low hiss.
She blinked at finding her foot still attached to her ankle and wiggled it free. “You tricked me.”
“You’re free, aren’t you?” With careful hands, he checked her ankle before helping her up and letting her put weight on it.
She gingerly set her foot down and took three steps. “Nothing twisted. Just my pride.” She threw him a shy look. “Now I know how you felt after the snake bite.”
He grunted.
“Seriously, though—bullets, cliffs, now the actual ground is coming for me.”
“The mountain’s just jealous,” he teased. “Wants you all to itself.”
“Tell the mountain it can get in line behind everything else that’s trying to take me out.”
That got a short, surprised laugh out of him, and he kept one hand at her elbow the rest of the way down to the water, unwilling to fully trust the terrain—or his own nerves—until she was safely settled on solid ground beside the spring.
It pooled into a shallow basin before trickling off into the trees as the thin stream she’d spotted from above.
She stopped and he glanced down at her foot, wondering if she really had twisted her ankle and the pain was just now catching up to her.
But she stood there, arms wrapped around herself and a faraway expression on her face. He followed the direction of her stare and saw the early sunlight catching on the ribbon of water and wisps of fog curling off the surface.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
He couldn’t look away from her face. When he swallowed, his throat felt as jagged as the rock under their feet.
“It is.” His voice came out rougher too, and the sound made Sinead snap her gaze up to his. A beat passed between them, throbbing with attraction.
Then he shook himself and gave a twitch of his head for her to follow.
They made it to the pool in no time, and he crouched at the edge and tested the water with two fingers.
“Warm.” Warmer than he expected this deep in the backcountry, far from anything resembling a hot spring.
Realization washed over him, and he went still. “Would you call this,” he said slowly, letting his fingers trickle through the water, “a secret spring?”
She crouched beside him, cupping some water in her palms to splash over her face and the back of her neck. “Looks pretty secret. I doubt a lot of humans have found it.”
He watched her wash the trail dust from her hands and face for a silent moment, struck again by how little of the woman in front of him matched the original image he’d built in his head when he heard who he was guarding.
He pulled off his cowboy hat, rinsed his hands and face in the water, and raked his damp fingers through his hair.
Everything about this mission so far had gone against what he expected. And he’d lived through too many battles by listening to his gut.
Right now, his gut was telling him that finding this spring was no coincidence.
“Sinead.”
She twisted to look at him, her temples and throat glistening with water. With her brow pinched, she studied his serious expression. What she saw on his face made her sit back on a wide, flat rock. “What is it?”
“I’ve got a story to tell you.”
* * * * *
Hawk settled onto the rock beside her, elbows on his knees. Sinead watched every move he made, from the way that tendon in his jaw ticked to the veins popping out on his forearms.
In the spell of silence between them, the stream splashed over the rocks and insects buzzed. He was quiet so long that whatever story he had to tell her was starting to freak her out.
“There’s a legend in these parts. Called the Legend of Three Prospectors.”
She stared at him with genuine surprise. She expected him to tell her about how he came to be a bodyguard or a time when he was a kid in the mountains.
He went on, “They were friends, back before this land belonged to anyone official. They decided to partner up and go looking for gold in these mountains.”
She settled herself in a more comfortable spot on the stone and listened.
“First one was Eli Winthrop.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “My great-great-grandfather,” she whispered.
He nodded, unsurprised. “I thought so.” He seemed to mull that over before going on. “Eli Winthrop. Amos McCrae. Levi Callahan. The three of them went out together. The route changes according to who tells the story, but one includes a secret spring.”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“And,” he continued in a low voice, “depending on who is retelling the legend, they found something worth finding.”
“What happened?”
“They were attacked. According to the version my grandfather told me, a native party raided the cabin. I don’t know how accurate it is to history, or what got exaggerated over a hundred fifty years of campfire retellings. But two of the three were killed in the raid.”
Her stomach tightened. “And the third?”