Part 15 (1/2)
”If those men do find the cabin, Daisy would be safer outside than pinned down inside. Zac knows that, but he doesn't know these mountains like I do. He could get lost.”
”You sure you aren't afraid of something else?”
Tyler smiled. ”Zac doesn't like Daisy well enough to try to seduce her. Come on, I'll let you take Zac with you. You can feed him to the cougar if he gives you any trouble.”
Daisy paced the cabin impatiently. She was supposed to be trying to figure out who killed her father, but thoughts of Tyler kept intruding. He and the cougar were after the same thing -- a deer. She couldn't think of that animal without a cold s.h.i.+ver. What if he were stalking Tyler?
”Sit down,” Zac ordered. ”All this charging about is making me too nervous to concentrate on my cards. If it's Tyler you're worried about, don't.”
”I can't sit still,” Daisy said, refusing to admit to Zac she was thinking of Tyler. ”I'm about to go crazy locked up in this cabin.”
”Up in Wyoming, people stay in cabins for months at a time and are perfectly all right.”
”But they're not locked up with you, are they?”
Zac's gaze snapped up from his cards. His black eyes glistened brightly. ”Watch it. Another crack like that, and I'll--”
”You'll do what? Lock me in my corner? Pitch me out into the snow?” Shock at her own words brought Daisy's outburst to an abrupt halt. ”I'm sorry,” she apologized. ”I don't know what's gotten into me.” It was more than confinement. It was Tyler, but she didn't know what to do about it.
”It's the snow,” Zac said, the glitter in his eyes becoming less intense. ”Tyler says people out here aren't used to it.”
”No, we're not,” Daisy admitted, happy to let him blame it on the snow. She couldn't explain about Tyler. She couldn't even explain him to herself.
She figured she had to be losing her mind. There was no reason for her to be thinking about him so much, especially not the way she had been thinking about him. She had been thinking it would be mighty nice to have him around all the time.
She couldn't like him that way. It didn't make sense. Outside of the fact he had shown no interest in her except as a casualty to be cared for, he was exactly the kind of person she had sworn never to marry. He was a dreamer, an impractical spinner of fantasies.
Luxury hotels! What a fantastic scheme!
She was too impatient with the idea to give it any serious consideration. Even if he found his mine, he'd lose it his money and end up living in a cabin for the rest of his life, hunting for his food, reading his books. She picked up one and read the spine. The Lost Indian Mines of New Mexico. She put it down and picked up another. More lost mines.
She snorted in disgust. Thousands of men had wasted their lives looking for these mines. Tyler was a fool to think he'd be the one to find them.
But that's how dreamers were. They were convinced the rules didn't apply to them, that they'd be the exception, that somehow fortune would favor them above all others. That's what her father thought. But instead of doing anything about it, he had sat around reading, talking, and wasting the money he did have.
”Why don't you sit down and read one of those books,” Zac suggested.
Daisy's gaze focused on the t.i.tle. She had forgotten she was still holding the book on mines. ”I'm not interested in lost mines,” she said, shoving it back in its place.
”He's got plenty more.”
”I don't want to read.”
”If you don't stop pacing, I'm going to tie you to a chair.”
Daisy walked over to the window and looked out. Her spirits rose. ”It's getting lighter outside.”
”Good. Maybe Tyler will find something beside a deer. I don't like venison.”
”Then why didn't you bring something when you came?”
”I don't go shopping,” Zac replied, shocked. ”I wouldn't know where to begin.”
”You go in the store and ask for what you want,” Daisy said sarcastically. ”They find it and give it to you.” Zac was more useless than she was, yet he didn't seem the slightest bit apologetic. In fact, he seemed to think it was other people's obligation to take care of him. Why couldn't she feel that way?
”If the sun comes out, maybe we can go out for a few minutes,” Daisy said.
”Tyler said to stay inside.”
”I didn't mean to go far. Just walk about the yard a bit.”
”Tyler said stay inside,” Zac repeated. ”He gets real irritated when people don't do what he wants.”
”I get irritated when people tell me what to do,” Daisy snapped. She was startled at her second outburst in the same morning. Her father made her furious all the time, but she had always kept a tight rein on her tongue. Yet she hadn't hesitated to speak her mind to Tyler or Zac. More surprisingly, they always seemed to take her objections in stride. At times she wondered if they even heard her. Her father would have had a fit.
She walked back to the bookcase and began to take out one book after another, but she didn't pay any attention to them. She kept wondering why Tyler didn't mind anything she did. More than that, she wondered why he thought she would be able to learn to manage her own ranch.
She was terribly afraid she could never succeed, but the possibility kept her mind spinning out of control, kept her nerves on edge.
”I'm going outside,” she announced. ”I can't stand being cooped up in here one more minute.”
”d.a.m.n!” Zac exclaimed as he slammed his cards down on the table and got to his feet. ”Why can't females ever do what they're told?”
Chapter Eleven.
Weak sunlight shone through the thin layer of clouds. After so many gloomy days, it almost seemed sunny. Daisy hugged her coat under her chin to keep out the bitter cold. Beneath the snow, ice crunched with each step she took.
”It's miserably cold out here,” Zac said, picking his way across the snow.
”Then stay inside.”
”I don't trust you not to get into trouble.”
”That's no skin off your nose.”
”Tyler will make it skin off my hide,” Zac complained. ”He has the mistaken notion I can keep you from doing exactly what he's told you not to do.”
”He'd pick me up and carry me back inside,” Daisy taunted. She didn't understand why that thought should excite her.
”I wouldn't carry any female across this ice.”
Daisy abandoned her attempt to goad Zac. He wasn't a bit like Tyler. She didn't want Zac to pick her up, but she practically skipped through the snow imagining herself being carried in Tyler's powerful arms.
”You promised to stay in the clearing,” Zac reminded her.
”I just want to walk a little way along the ridge,” Daisy said. ”Somebody's already made a path.”