He smiled at her perception. “Aye, I did. Is that so bad?”
“Actually, it is.” She turned to glare at him. “You judged me to be so shallow that I could only care about a man if he looked a certain way. I was put on trial even though I had risked my life to save you. You were a convicted murderer, but I judged you for what I saw, not what I’d been told. Now will you go away so I can do my work?”
Alex got up, and when he turned away, he caught a glimpse of Eli looking at him with sympathy.
Cay punished him for the entire three days it took them to get to the trading post. She would hardly look at him, rarely spoke to him, and, more or less, acted like he didn’t exist. She even pretended she couldn’t understand his accent. Alex hadn’t realized it, but for the entire trip he’d talked in his Scottish accent and she had translated for him—until the others had come to understand him. Even Tim, who was no great shakes in the brain area, had started saying, “Och aye, an’ dornt Ah ken it.”
But when Cay was angry at Alex, she coolly said that she had no idea what he was saying, could he please speak English?
It was Eli who stopped the fight that seemed to have no end. He caught Alex alone, away from the others. “Tell Cay you were wrong.”
“What?” Alex said, looking up from the rifle he was cleaning.
“Your brother. Tell him you were wrong.”
“But I did.”
“Tell him you were wrong on the day you were born and have been wrong every day since.”
“But—” Alex began.
Eli shrugged. “It’s up to you, lad. But to be wrong and to have always have been wrong is the only way to solve this. Take it from a man who used to want to be right at all costs. And look where I am today. Alone. Traveling with a bunch of men. My three brothers have eighteen kids.” Turning, a load of firewood in his arms, Eli went back to the camp.
Not that Alex had any more doubt that the men knew Cay was a girl, but Eli’s words cinched it. Alex’s first thought was to go to Cay and warn her, but his next thought was that he was past caring what the men on this trip knew. If it would make Cay stop being angry at him, he’d go to her on bended knee in front of them and beg. “And tell her I’m wrong,” he said aloud. He still felt that he wasn’t fully wrong. Not totally, but maybe . . . On the other hand, maybe he hadn’t been 100 percent in the right, either.
He felt bad for doing it, but he followed her when she left the camp to take a privacy break and waited in the shrubs until she was on her way back. When he stepped out of the bushes, she gasped.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said as contritely as he could manage. “I just wanted to tell you that . . . that . . .” He drew his shoulders up. “That I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“All of it. Everything.”
Cay narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this a trick?”
“This is a plea to get you to forgive me,” he said. “I lied to you, I admit it. It won’t happen again. And I misjudged you. I did think you were a frivolous girl who’d never had anything bad happen to her. But I’ve known women who wanted me only for the way I looked, so it was nice to see you start to, well, to like me even though you thought I was old and ugly. But it was all selfish of me, and I was wrong. From beginning to end, I was wrong. Totally and completely and absolutely wrong. Please say you’ll forgive me.”
“All right,” she said, and started to walk back toward the camp.
Alex caught her arm and pulled her to face him. “All right? Is that it?”
“Do you want more? You did a truly bad thing to me and I—” Alex cut her off as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She had missed him horribly, more than she would ever tell him. She’d missed the smell of him, the feel of his skin on hers, his actions, his habits. All of it was part of her, and she’d had to keep away from him for so long that she felt as though she was missing half of her body.
She kissed his beautiful face and felt the sharp prickle of his whiskers on her cheeks. There was a trickle of sweat running down one cheek, and she couldn’t help it, but she licked it away. The sweat and the very male whiskers on her tongue sent waves of desire through her.
“Cay, I’ve missed you,” Alex said. “Don’t leave me again. Please don’t leave me. I need you so very much.”
She put her head back, and he ran his lips down her neck. She’d thought that she’d feel differently when he touched her because now she knew what he looked like. It was as though he’d always worn a mask before, but now he was at last fully naked, and she thought he would be a different man to her. But he wasn’t. With her eyes closed, he was the same man she’d spent many hours with. They’d laughed and loved together, and now they’d fought together. They’d come full circle.
Twenty-two
“It’s sweeter now,” Alex said. One hand was on Cay’s bare shoulder, and the other was just touching the water of the stream.
“What is?”
“Us. You and me. What’s bet