A Heart So Wild (24 page)

Her father probably loved Ella. And they didn't need the upset Courtney would be bringing into their lives.

She sighed, pushing herself away from the wall, and went to fetch her bag.

W
ITH a cunning she hadn't realized herself capable of, Courtney managed to put off any discussion of Chandos for several days. She kept her father distracted by asking him all about his life in Waco, how he'd met Ella, and so forth. Patients kept him busy—how familiar that was—so she got to see him only in the late afternoon and evenings, and even then he was often called away.

She got to know Ella too and found she actually liked her. It was a big change, after Sarah. But Ella was busy too, with school, and Courtney found herself alone too long every day.

It didn't take long for her to become bored. She considered asking for Mrs. Manning's responsibilities. After all, she was quite capable of running a house. But she heard Mrs. Manning's life story one morning, and saw how utterly happy she was to be working for the Hartes, so that was that. But Courtney had worked too many years to be able to just laze away her days. She had to do something.

For a few days she helped her father with his patients. He was pleased. She had always wanted to be involved in his work, but had
never had a chance to learn how draining it could be. She was too sympathetic, her feelings too easily aroused. When she broke down at the sight of a crippled child, she stopped working in her father's office.

Ten days after Courtney arrived, she decided to leave. It wasn't only that she felt so useless here. Fletcher Straton had been right. She wasn't at all comfortable intruding on a new marriage. Edward and Ella had so little time together as it was, and now they were forced to spend much of it with her. They were still getting to know each other, and her presence there was often awkward.

The nights were the worst. Courtney heard her father and Ella talking companionably in the room next to hers, then heard them make love. She blushed when she saw them in the morning. It was more than she could bear. Even a pillow over her head didn't help. And there was no getting away from it because there were only three bedrooms, and Mrs. Manning had the third.

Those were her reasons for leaving, or so Courtney told herself. But the fact was, she missed Chandos so much that she was utterly miserable, and it was too hard to keep on pretending otherwise.

She told her father she was going to visit Maggie for a few days, but she had every intention of coaxing a job out of Fletcher Straton. A ranch that size, there had to be something she could do.

Fletcher was delighted when she arrived and told him what she wanted. She'd known he
would be, what with his sending a man to watch her father's house day after day.

She had to come up with enough courage to tell her father she wouldn't be returning to his house after all. He would be disappointed. He would tell her she didn't have to work. He would remind her that they'd only just been reunited. But it wasn't as if they couldn't see each other and as often as they liked, she would tell him. She was only four miles away from him.

That was what she would tell her father, but the truth boiled down to one thing: she wanted to live on the ranch and draw on Fletcher Straton's certainty that Chandos would come back. She needed that hope more than anything.

Dinner that evening with Fletcher was enjoyable. He tried hard to make her feel at home. Maggie and Sawtooth dined with them, and everyone made suggestions as to what Courtney could do around the ranch. These suggestions included cataloging Fletcher's library, decorating the big house, and even naming the newborn calves. Sawtooth nearly choked on his food as Fletcher swore he always named every calf.

After dinner there was lively, affectionate reminiscing. Maggie told how Fletcher had found her in Galveston. He'd been looking for a housekeeper for a long time and knew she was the one he wanted. But she had no intention of staying in Texas, and was on her way to New Hampshire to live with her sister.

Fletcher promised she could rule his household any way she pleased, and she knew she wouldn't have that privilege with her sister, so
Maggie agreed. But Fletcher claimed she hadn't agreed until he'd promised her her own house, exactly like the one she had left behind in England. He kept his word, all right. She got the very cottage she left behind, shipped all the way from England, contents and all!

With much laughter, Sawtooth told the story of how he and Fletcher had met, fifteen years ago. It was nighttime on the plains, and each thought the other was an Indian. It was a dark night, too dark to go investigating, and they'd each heard a noise. Was it an animal? An Indian? Each spent a sleepless night lying, tense, in a bedroll twenty feet from the other! Come morning, they'd had a look at each other and a good laugh over it.

Courtney went to bed feeling better than she had in days. She needed to be near these people who were close to Chandos. Well, maybe not close. He didn't allow that. But they all cared for him. And none of them would ever tell Courtney he wasn't the man for her, as her father surely would if he knew she was in love with a gunfighter.

 

A soft breeze stirred the curtains at the open window. Courtney turned over in bed, stretching sleepily, and gasped as the hand clamped over her mouth. A weight fell on the bed, pressing on her, heavy, frightening, pinning her arms so she couldn't move at all. And this time she didn't have her gun under her pillow. She had thought she was safe.

“What in the goddamn hell are you doing here?”

His voice was rough and furious, but it was
the sweetest sound Courtney had ever heard. She tried to speak, but he didn't move his hand.

“I nearly killed my horse getting here, only to find you're not where you're supposed to be! And I just about scared the life out of the old woman a few minutes ago, thinking you'd be bunking with her. But no, you're in the goddamn main house, the place I swore I'd never set foot in again. I must be loco! What the hell are you doing here?”

Courtney shook her head, trying to dislodge his hand. Why didn't he take his hand away? Surely he must know she wouldn't scream, that she was overjoyed to see him. But no, he didn't know that. She had run away from him. He'd tried to turn her against him, and he probably thought he'd succeeded. Then what was he doing here?

He put his forehead down against hers and sighed. He'd gotten the anger out of his system. What
was
he doing here? she asked herself again.

As if he'd read her mind, he said, “I couldn't let it rest. I had to see if you were all right, if everything turned out the way you wanted it to. Did it? No, of course it didn't, or you wouldn't be out here at the Bar M, instead of in town with your father. I know he's there. I saw him, the house, the wife. What happened, cateyes? You upset because he's got a wife? You can shake your head, you know, or nod.”

She didn't. She wasn't going to let him get away with a one-sided conversation. She bared her teeth and bit him hard.

“Ow!” he growled, jerking his hand away.

“Serves you right, Chandos!” Courtney
snapped. “Just what do you think you're doing, pinning me down and not letting me answer all these questions?” She sat up and said, “If the only reason you came here was to see if I'm all right, then you can just go.” He got up from the bed. “Don't you dare leave!” she gasped, clutching his arm.

He didn't. A match flared and he located the lamp by her bed. In the seconds it took him to light the lamp, she feasted her eyes on him. He looked terrible, his dark clothes were dusty and there were tired lines around his eyes. He hadn't shaved. He was every inch a hard, dangerous, gunman, yet to her he was a splendid sight.

He looked down at her and Courtney felt a tension begin in her belly as those pale blue eyes moved over her. She was wearing a modest white cotton nightgown she had bought when Ella took her shopping. Her deep, golden tan glowed against it, and her eyes were only slightly darker than her skin. Her brown hair was loose and sun-streaked.

“How come you look…prettier?”

She tried not to let him see how flustered the question made her.

“Maybe because it's been so long since you've seen me?”

“Maybe.”

Neither of them considered that ten days wasn't such a long time. He had been through hell, as she had. Ten days had been an eternity.

“I thought I would never see you again, Chandos,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” He sat down on the side of the bed, forcing her to move over
and give him room. “I had every intention of heading down to Mexico after I left San Antonio,” he told her. “And a day, one goddamn day's riding, that's as far as I got before I turned around.”

She had been hoping for a declaration, but he was angry because he had returned, for whatever reason, against his will. Disappointment sparked her temper.

“Why?” she demanded. “And if you tell me again that it was just to see if I was all right, I swear I'll hit you!”

He almost but not quite smiled. “After the way we parted, I didn't think you'd accept any other reason.”

“Try me.”

“I couldn't leave it alone, cateyes,” he said simply, looking her in the eye. “I thought I could. I thought if you hated me, that would be enough reason for me to stay away. But it didn't work. Where you're concerned, nothing has ever worked to keep me away.”

Hope returned. “Is that so bad?” she asked softly.

“Isn't it? You can't have wanted to see me again.”

She knew he was hoping for a denial, but after what he'd put her through, she wasn't letting him off that easy.

“If you believed that, I'm surprised you had the gall to come.”

He scowled. “So am I. But I've already said I must be loco. Especially for coming to you here—
here!
” He gestured, taking in the whole Bar M.

“God sakes, you act as if this place is a
prison,” she retorted. “No one's going to force you to stay here, least of all your father.”

He froze. Then his scowl darkened. “You know?”

“Yes. I don't see why you couldn't have told me. You must have known I'd hear about the rebellious Kane Straton.”

“Don't presume to judge by what you've heard, cateyes. You've heard only the old man's side of it.”

“Then tell me yours.”

He shrugged. “He thought he had me, that I would want all this and would take anything he dished out just to stay. So he punished me for my mother's sins, punished me because she preferred life with the Comanche to living with him. He took all his hate and bitterness out on me, and then he wondered why he got back only contempt.” He shook his head at the stupidity of it.

“Are you so sure that's the way it was, Chandos? Weren't you biased before you even got here? Your mother must have harbored resentment against Fletcher for giving her no choice but to leave here, and some of that had to rub off on you. After all, you were only a child. So maybe your father's behavior was just a reaction to the way you were behaving toward him.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he said, exasperated.

“I know he loves you,” she stated flatly, “and he regrets all the mistakes he made with you. And I know he'd give anything for another chance with you.”

“You mean another chance to turn me into
what he wants me to be,” he said, giving her a cynical look.

“No. He's learned his lesson. Oh, God sakes, Chandos, this is your
home
,” she said in exasperation. “Doesn't that mean anything to you? It means something to me. It's why I'm here.”

“Why? Because you thought this was the one place you could hide from me? That I wouldn't risk coming here?”

That stung. “No!” she cried. “Because this is where you left me, so I felt closer to you here.”

He certainly wasn't expecting that. The declaration robbed him of the head of steam he'd been building, leaving him deflated. Strangely, it also left him feeling elated.

“Cateyes.” His voice was rough.

His hand touched her cheek, his fingers gliding into the soft hair around her ear. He leaned closer. His lips touched hers, and it was like the breaking of a dam. Passion flooded them, drowning out everything else.

In mere moments their clothes were shed and their bodies were clinging as tightly as their mouths, each body suffering an agony of impatience. Chandos made love with a fierce possessiveness he had never shown before, and Courtney welcomed him with a savage intensity she had never equaled before.

They spoke with their bodies, saying all they couldn't say in words, each offering the other all the love and want and need that had always been there.

Tomorrow their lovemaking might be only another memory. But tonight, Courtney was Chandos's woman.

C
AREFULLY, quietly, Courtney opened the door to her bedroom a few inches and peeked in. Chandos was still sleeping, and no wonder. Since he'd left her, he had gotten thirty hours of sleep, which wasn't enough for five days, let alone ten.

She closed the door quietly and stood there gazing at Chandos for a moment. She was going to let him sleep as long as he liked. She wasn't going to tell anyone he was here, either. Maggie knew, but she wasn't going to warn Fletcher. She'd said it would do the old coot good to be surprised. Maggie was sure Chandos wouldn't just take off.

Courtney hoped she was right, but she wasn't as confident as Maggie was. Oh, there was no denying Chandos still wanted her. For a long, long while last night he had proved that in every way possible. But that didn't mean he wanted her forever. And it didn't mean he wouldn't go off and leave her again.

Yet there was real hope now. He
had
come back. And he'd confessed that he couldn't stay away from her. Knowing that was enough to send Courtney's spirits soaring.

She put his saddlebags, which Maggie had
brought in earlier, in the corner. Then she approached the mirror to check her appearance once more. She was still amazed at how radiant she looked this morning. Had love put that sparkle in her eyes? No, love had its ups and downs, as she could surely attest to by now! It was happiness that made her feel like laughing, singing, shouting even. And that happiness wasn't easy to contain.

For a while she sat by the window, watching Chandos sleep. That wasn't enough. She knew she should leave the room, go find something to do to keep her occupied. But she couldn't shake the fear that when she came back later, Chandos would be gone. That was absurd, for he wouldn't disappear this time without at least telling her when she would see him again. He had to give her that much consideration. That was the
only
thing she was sure of, however, so she didn't want to let him out of her sight.

She approached the bed slowly, meaning not to disturb him. She just wanted to be closer. After a few minutes standing by the bed, she lay down, very carefully. He didn't stir. He slept so soundly, which was unlike him, and just went to show how exhausted he was. He was so tired that he wouldn't wake even if…

She touched him, her fingers running lightly over the hard muscles on his chest. He lay with only the thin sheet covering his long limbs, and Courtney could envision all of him. He didn't make a sound when she touched him. He was still fast asleep, and Courtney got bolder, letting her fingers glide over the sheet, along his flanks, over his hard thighs.

And then she gasped as a particular area of him stirred, and he chuckled. “Don't stop now, kitten.”

Hot color stained her neck and cheeks, vivid against her yellow lawn gown. “You weren't really asleep, were you?” she accused him.

“A drawback from the habits of the trail.”

His eyes were sleepy as he gazed at her. He was so incredibly sexy, but Courtney was embarrassed now, and quickly vacated the bed. “Your gear is here, in case you want to shave. Unless you want to go back to sleep…I didn't mean to disturb you. You can sleep some more, if you like. No one knows you're here.”

“Not yet.” He sat up. “But it won't be long before someone spots Surefoot behind Maggie's house.”

“Maggie took care of that.” She grinned. “She dragged him into her parlor.”

“What?”

Courtney giggled. “I couldn't believe it when I saw him there, but he's tolerating it just fine. Maggie's making up for telling Fletcher you brought me here. She said if anything happens this time, it should be up to you.”

Chandos grunted, running a hand over his jaw. “I guess I could use a shave.”

Courtney pointed to his saddlebags in the corner, then sat down on the bed to watch him. “Will you see your father?” she asked tentatively.

“No,” he said flatly, putting on a pair of black pants. He glanced up, giving her a stern look. “And don't try to patch things up, woman. I want nothing to do with that man.”

“He's gruff and hard, and he bellows a lot, but he's not so bad, Chandos.”

He gave her a look and she sighed, lowering her eyes.

After a while she looked up to see him lathering his face by the washstand. She inquired hesitantly, “Did you find him, Chandos, the man in San Antonio?”

His back stiffened. “I found him. He'd had his trial, and he was set to hang.”

“Then you didn't kill him?”

“I broke him out of jail,” he said dispassionately. He slowly wiped his face clean, remembering. “It wasn't hard. Smith had no friends in San Antonio, so no one was expecting anything.”

Chandos turned around then. She had never seen such a cold, hard look in his eyes, or heard such hate in anyone's voice. “I broke both of his arms, among other things, and then I hanged him. But the bastard was already dead. He must have suspected something. Maybe he recognized Trask's horse that I had waiting for him, I don't know. Maybe he just didn't trust my reasons for breaking him out. But he attacked me as soon as we stopped. He got hold of my knife and we fought over it. In the fight, he fell on it, and he died within seconds. It wasn't enough!” he said, anguished. “It wasn't
enough
for what he did to White Wing.”

Courtney crossed the room and put her arms around him. It was some time before she felt his arms respond, but at last he drew her closer.

“Was White Wing your sister?”

“Yes.”

In a distant voice, as though from far away,
he told her about that day, about coming home to find his mother and sister raped and killed. Before he finished, Courtney was sobbing. It was he who ended up comforting her.

“Don't cry, cateyes. I never could stand to hear you cry. And it's over now. They aren't crying anymore, either. They can sleep in peace now.”

He kissed her gently, and then he kissed her again. This was one way to draw solace from each other—and to forget.