Elizabeth Lowell by Reckless Love Page B

herself confronted by an expanse of naked shoulders that seemed to block out most of the world.
    “H-how is your back healing?” she asked.
    “You tell me,” he said dryly. “You can see it better than I can.”
    She bit her lip, irritated by her silly question and his goading response. But asking that question had been safer than following her original impulse, which had been to run her hands over his tanned, supple skin. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to concentrate on the shadow bruises and faint, thin lines of red that marked recently healed cuts. She traced the longest line with delicate fingertips.
    He flinched as though she had used a whip on him.
    “Don’t do that,” he snapped.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was still painful. It looks healed.”
    His lips flattened, but he said nothing to correct her assumption that it had been pain rather than pleasure that had made his body jerk. Her fingertips had been like that single touch from her lips, a brush of warmth and a shivering hint of the feminine sensuality concealed beneath men’s clothing.
    “When we get back from town, I’ll put more salve on,” she continued.
    His mouth opened to object, but he closed it without making a sound. The temptation to feel her soothing hands on his body was simply too great for him to deny himself the opportunity of being cared for by her.
    Silently Ty nudged Zebra with his left heel. The mare turned obediently and headed toward the cleft in the rocks that surrounded the tiny valley. Each motion of the horse’s buttocks, combined with the natural forward slope of Zebra’s back, gently moved Janna toward Ty’s warm body.
    He flinched again when the brim of her floppy hat touched his skin.
    “Sorry,” she muttered, pulling her head back.
    He grunted.
    Zebra kept on walking and Janna kept sliding closer to him. Before they came to the cleft that led from the valley, she was flush against his body. Only by leaning back at an awkward angle could she prevent her hat—or her lips—from brushing against his skin.
    The fifth time she felt compelled to apologize for the contact she could not avoid, she wriggled away from him until she could put her hands on the horse’s back between their bodies. Cautiously she pushed herself backward a fraction of an inch at a time, not wanting to alarm Zebra.
    As her weight settled farther back on the mare’s spine, her tail swished in warning, sending a stinging veil of hair across Ty’s naked calf.
    “Damn, what is her tail made of—nettles?”
    Janna didn’t answer. Instead, she eased herself backward another inch, then two.
    Zebra balked and humped her back in warning.
    “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, turning to look over his shoulder at Janna. “What the hell are you doing way back there? Don’t you know a horse’s kidneys and flanks are sensitive? Or maybe you’re trying to get us both bucked off in the dirt?”
    “I was trying not to hurt your back.”
    “My back? My back is just fi—” Abruptly he remembered what he had said about his back being hurt by her light touch. “I’ll live,” he said grimly. “Scoot on up here where you belong before this mustang bucks us both off.”
    “I’d rather not,” Janna said through stiff lips.
    He kicked his right leg over Zebra’s neck and slid off onto the ground. “Get up there where you belong,” he said in a curt voice. “I’ll walk.”
    “No, I’ll walk,” she said, dismounting in a rush, landing very close to him. “I’m used to it. Besides, I haven’t been hurt and you have.”
    “I’m all healed up.”
    “But you said your back—”
    “Get on that mustang before I lose my temper,” he said flatly, cutting across her protest.
    “Lose your temper? Impossible. You’d have to find it first.”
    Ty glared into Janna’s gray eyes. She didn’t flinch.
    With a hissed curse he grabbed her and dumped her on her stomach across Zebra’s back. He had plenty of time to regret the