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

chunky pieces with a cracker. Neither utensils were efficient, but both served their purpose.
    "Cigarette?" Reilly offered when they had finished their meal, removing a pack from his shirt pocket and shaking out a filtered tip for her.
    "Mmm, please." Leah accepted the cigarette, bending forward as he lit the end with the burning tip of a stick from the fire.
    They smoked their cigarettes in a comfortable silence. Leah finished hers first, then tossing the butt into the glowing camp fire.
    "I suppose I should clean the dishes," she sighed.
    "Might as well," Reilly agreed. "We might have to use them tonight." His comment drew her attention to the sky, empty of any search plane. "Sand will work better than water to clean."
    Drawing her gaze away from the sky, Leah picked up the pan and poured in a small handful of sand. When it was scoured clean she rinsed away the grit with a little water and started on the shallow bowls. Reilly picked up the canteen and emptied it into the pan.
    "Why did you do that?" she frowned.
    "I'm going to refill the canteen from the basin. While I'm gone I want you to have water on hand to pour on the fire in case you see a search plane," he answered.
    "But it will put the fire out," Leah protested.
    "It will also make a lot of smoke which with luck the pilot would see and come to investigate," Reilly pointed out.
    "I see." Dimples edged into her cheeks. "The old Indian smoke trick."
    "Right," he winked, and started walking toward the slope.
    She scoured the two bowls clean, rinsing them with a handful of water from the pot and wiping them dry with a tissue. With that done, she checked the clothes she had draped over the bushes and found that they were dry. She folded hers up and put them in her suitcase. Reilly's she stacked neatly on top of his suitcase. With only the partial use of her left hand, the task had taken some time, yet still Reilly hadn't returned. The sun was making its fiery presence in the sky felt. Leah added some more wood to the fire and sat down away from the blaze to wait.
    Finally she saw him on the ledge above. He started down the fairly steep slope with the canteen in one hand and a four-foot-long board in the other.
    "I wondered what was taking you so long," Leah called when he was half way down. "You made a sidetrip for more firewood."
    At the base of the slope, Reilly made his reply. "No, I'm not going to use this board for firewood." He set the canteen beside the box of packaged food. "I'm going to try and split it in two and make lean-to poles out of it. It's going to get hotter and we'll need to get out of the sun."
    After splitting the board down the middle with the pocket-knife as his wedge, he whittled each end to a point. The stiff, blanket-like sheet they had used last night had grommets in each corner. The stakes supported two of the blanket's corners and Reilly weighted the other two to the ground with rocks.
    "A strong wind would probably blow it down, but it keeps out the sun," he declared, then bent down to sit inside his lean-to and waved Leah to join him.
    She moved eagerly to its shade, revelling in the coolness after the burning rays of the sun. Reilly picked up one of the sticks from the firewood pile and began whittling on it with his knife.
    "What are you making now?" she asked curiously.
    "I thought I'd try my hand at carving a spoon."
    Lying on her back with her arm as a pillow, she watched him shaving away the outer layer of wood with his knife. The steady rhythm of the slashing blade was slightly hypnotic. Soon she found her eyelids growing heavy.
    "Why don't you take a siesta?"Reilly suggested when she tried to blink away the tiredness. "I'll keep a watch for any search planes."
    "I think I will." She stopped fighting the drowsiness and closed her eyes.
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    Chapter Four
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    LEAH SLEPT THROUGH the heat of the afternoon. The same rhythmic sound that lulled her to sleep was the first one she heard when she wakened. Reilly was sitting in the