Reilly's Woman by Janet Dailey Read Free Book Online Page A

her hair behind her ear.
    "Mainly because it's so dry," was his cryptic reply. Then he explained, "There's so little moisture in the desert that the plants can't grow close together. Their roots systems are wide and deep to absorb every available trace of water, so they choke out any new plant that tries to grow. The distance between plants keeps any fire that starts from spreading."
    He sat back on his heels, waiting for the pyramidlike stack of wood to catch fire. Leah understood what he had meant last night about it being a slow process to build a fire, without the aid of kerosene or starter fuel.
    "Now that we've found water, we can mix up some of that dehydrated food," he stated.
    "I'll see what we have." Leah opened the metal box and began looking at the packages inside. "Here's some beef stew, but what shall we heat it in?"
    "There's some twisted fragments of metal from the plane wing over by the slide. Maybe one of them can be used as a makeshift pan."
    "I'll see." She started to get to her feet, but he motioned her to sit back down.
    "On second thought, I'd better look," he said. "I don't want you accidentally cutting yourself on the metal edges."
    He stacked two more pieces of wood, larger than those propped against each other, making sure there remained openings at the bottom to keep a circling draught of air.
    Leah didn't object as he rose smoothly to his feet. With only one hand operating effectively, she had already discovered gathering rocks for the fire ring that she was very clumsy.
    Within a few minutes Reilly had returned with a twisted piece of metal using two of the rocks around the fire, one as a hammer and one as a hard surface, he beat away the sharp edges around the outside. Then he turned the angulary hollowed center upside down on top of the rock and hammered a flat bottom in the pan. When the sides were fairly straight, he examined it for a moment, then glanced at Leah.
    "Do you think it will work, cook?" A mocking eyebrow was lifted in question.
    "So I'm the cook, am I?" Leah nodded in an amused, knowing manner.  
    There was a wicked glint in his dark jade eyes. "Cooking is squaw's work, isn't it?"
    Leah smiled and shook her head, silently amazed that they could be joking about the Indian blood that flowed in his veins after she had made that challenging and unwittingly derogatory remark last night.  
    "I've heard that it is," she admitted.
    "Will the pan do, then?" He held it out for her inspection.
    "I think so." Leah took the pan and set it on the ground beside her. "Hand me the canteen, will you? I'll start mixing the stew while you get the fire hot."
    First, Leah rinsed out the makeshift pan with a little water, wiping it dry with some tissue. By guess, she roughly measured the amount of water required into the pan and added the dried soup.
    "What can I use to stir this?" She glanced at Reilly, her face breaking into a sudden smile. "Better yet, how are we going to eat this without a spoon?"
    "Here's my pocket knife." He handed it to her with the blade closed. "I guess we'll have to stab the meat and potatoes with the blade and drink the liquid."
    "The pan will have to work as a community bowl, too, I guess," she laughed shortly, and stirred the dry ingredients into the water.
    It was almost an hour later before Reilly could separate a few glowing coals from the fire bed to heat the stew. He propped the pan an inch above the embers on some flat rocks.
    It wasn't long before the liquid started bubbling, emitting an appetizing aroma.
    In the interim, Reilly had fashioned two shallow bowls from the metal fragments of the plane, explaining that the sides of the pan would be too hot to drink from. When the stew was heated through, he took the shirt Leah had draped over a bush and folded it to use as a potholder to remove the pan from the coals.
    Carefully he poured part of the stew into the two bowls and handed Leah's to her. Leah refused his offer to use the knife, choosing to scoop out the