And One Rode West (2 page)

She shivered fiercely. He was just feet away from her. In seconds, he would reach the center of the tepee. She would see him bathed in the red-gold glory of the fire, and she would see his eyes, and she would know why he had come.

“You!” she gasped.

He reached the fire. She blinked and her mouth went dry. She could scarcely move, could scarcely believe.

Indeed, the golden glory of the fire touched him. Touched his majestic height, played upon the fine breadth of his shoulders. Touched his eyes, and she saw the jeweled gleam of them. She saw the burning of emotion, but just what emotion, she could not determine.

He reached down his hands to her, catching her wrists when she continued to stare incredulously at him.

He wrenched her to her feet and brought her crashing hard against him.

“Tomorrow, madam, I may die for you,” he said. His voice was rich and deep, his words harsh. The emotion that burned in his eyes brought fire to his fingertips, a touch of steel to the way that he held her. He brought her closer against him. His fingers stroked and cupped her chin, tilting her face, forcing her eyes to his. His fingers threaded into the wild tangle of her hair. His eyes traveled the length of her, assessing her for damage, so it seemed. His fingers, entangled at the nape of her neck, held her head steady as his lips lowered until they hovered just above hers. His grip was forceful. The length of him seemed to shake with electric energy, be it passion or fury.

He continued to whisper, the warmth of his breath bathing her lips and her face.

“Tomorrow I may die. Tonight …” He paused just briefly. She felt the fire in his eyes once again, and the tension of the blaze that burned within his body, as crimson and gold as the flames that lit the tepee. “Tonight,” he continued raggedly, “tonight, my love, you will make it worth my while!”

His lips descended upon hers, hard, questing, demanding.

And bringing all that fire within her.

“Jesu!” she whispered when the bruising force of his lips left her mouth at last. The fire coursed throughout her body. It felt like electricity, moving through her limbs and heart and womb. Her eyes searched his out. God, yes, she had wanted him before. Deeply, passionately. But never like she wanted him this night, with the wind crying beyond the buffalo-hide walls, with the pulse of the drumbeats never ending.

He had come.

She threw her arms around him, clung to him. His fingers moved over her hair, reveling in the length of it. He drew her away from him, the fury, the passion, still alive within him.

“Life—and death. Make them both worthwhile,” he told her harshly.

She stared at him, and then he swept her up into his arms, and bore her down to the furs upon the ground.

“Love me!” he commanded her fiercely.

For a moment his handsome face hovered close over hers. She wanted to reach and touch him, yet she felt as if her limbs were frozen. He stood briefly, casting off his shirt, shedding his clothing, then coming down to her, sleek and naked upon the fur. The length of him was bathed in the fire-gold beauty of the flames. His hands were upon her, stripping her of the fine doeskin tunic the women had given her to wear.

And then she was against his burning, naked flesh.

The corner of his lips twisted into a self-mocking smile.

“Give in to me!” he commanded her. “Everything, Christa, everything.”

Staring at him in the dancing light, she felt a pain like death steal over her heart.

She had given in to him—long ago. He knew that he had brought about her surrender.

But perhaps he didn’t know just how completely he held her heart.

If she said it, he would never believe her. He would assume that she was deliriously grateful that he was here.

She had fought her battles all too well.

She had disobeyed him. In fact, she had betrayed him. Her reckless determination had brought them here, brought on this disaster.

And still, he had come for her.

He straddled over her, his naked thighs like oaks, the ripple of muscle in his arms and chest gleaming gold and bronze. From head to toe, he was tension, passion, and determination. She began to tremble, wanting him.

And knowing that she loved him.

She reached out her arms to him, her eyes wide and luminous. She moistened her lips to speak, and her words quavered.

“I will give you everything!” she vowed, and added in a vehement whisper, “And well, well worth your while will it be!”

He groaned softly, capturing her lips again with his hunger, a callused hand stroking and cradling the fullness of her breast.

Fire exploded.

And the words almost left her lips.

I love you.

What words to cry when there might be no future to prove them, she thought with anguish.

For fierce, fiery moments, it ceased to matter. His kiss claimed her and burst into her. The fire of need burst and spread rampantly. His touch encompassed her. The hardness of his body against hers aroused and awakened her to a fever pitch. She had sworn to make it real. She parted her lips to his kiss, and felt his tongue rake the insides of her mouth. His touch seemed to be all over her. Fingers touching her breasts, caressing her hips, stroking her thighs. His lips rising from hers, his mouth forming over the hardening peak of her breast, lapping sweet fire. His hands upon her inner thigh, his fingers touching, stroking, finding her cleft, diving within her. Soft cries escaped her. She shifted and undulated beneath him, and he stopped all but that touch, watching her in the golden red light. She heard his whisper.

“Death holds no threat, my love. Indeed, you have made it all worth my while!”

He would never see the flush that rose to her cheeks against the fire’s glow. Perhaps he sensed it. Perhaps he would brook no hesitance or modesty on her part this night. He fell atop her again, kissing, stroking. She fought his touch, hungered then to give what he gave to her. Upon her knees, she kissed his shoulders, her fingers biting into flesh and muscle. She kissed his lips, his chest, dazed to be with him again. He caught her hand and guided it to the fullness of his sex, and she trembled, still awed by the size and vitality of his passion. Yet even as she stroked him, he cried out. He swept her up into his arms, then laid her flat against the hides and fur of the bedding. He caught her ankles, spreading her legs. He hovered over her, his lips ravaging hers again, his eyes seeking her own. He would take her now, she thought, for they were both well starved for one another. But he did not. He could not
seem to have his fill of the touch and taste and scent of her. Again, his lips covered hers. He kissed her breasts, then bathed her belly, and even as she cried out, his lips and his tongue stroked and teased her in an incredibly bold and intimate fashion. The fire glistened, her body throbbed. She thought that she would black out from the force of her emotions. Within her a climax began to build unbearably. She whimpered and twisted, and then he rose above her again, his eyes on hers.

“Jesu!” It was his turn to whisper.

He scooped her into his arms and thrust into her hard. The force of his passion was breathtaking.

There was no subtlety now, just the hunger, let go at last to run rampant. Her arms entwined around him, she was near to sobbing as he thrust and stroked, as she strove to meet him, as the blazes burst high and climbed and soared around them. Senseless, she registered only the physical feelings. The buff color of the buffalo-hide walls. The never-ending gold and red of the fire. The feel of the furs and hides beneath her on her naked skin. The man above her. His muscles were slick with sweat now and glistening with every bit as much fire and gold as the blaze. Rippling, tense, constricted, easing.

His eyes, so demanding, hard upon her own. The planes of his face, both rugged and handsome. Fine lines, beautifully and harshly drawn. The feel of his flesh against her. The feel of his sex enclosed within her, slick, wet, hot.

She shrieked out, holding fiercely to him, limbs locked around him as her climax exploded fully upon her at last. She heard him whisper something, but she didn’t know what. She drifted, aching, trembling, spent, delicious, still throbbing.

Seconds later, she was aware of the sudden, steel-hard constriction of his body. A long, harsh groan escaped
him, and he shuddered, coming within her again and again. And more gently, just once again.

He held her, then sighed. He eased his weight from her and scooped her into his arms. He held her, stroking her hair.

I love you!

The words were there again.

But she couldn’t say them. He had brought her to the plains of heaven. But that was only an illusion. The tepee was real. The fire was real. The threat of death was real.

She started to speak.

“Sh!” he said softly. “We have the night.”

The night. They had the night.

Perhaps no future. Only a past.

Sometimes it seemed the past they shared had begun forever ago.

Sometimes it seemed as if it had been just moments ago when he had come to her, galloping up upon his horse.

An unwilling cavalier. One who wore the wrong color.

And one with whom she had made a devil’s bargain.

It had been forever ago …

No, it had been just a few months ago, with a lifetime of living in those months.

The war had ended at the beginning of summer.

And their private battle had begun.

One
 
A Conquered Nation

The day was so hot that the sun seemed to shimmer above the ground, making the fields and the land weave in a distorted manner. The humidity was as high as the day was hot.

Christa Cameron suddenly stood straight, bone-tired from the heat. She arched her sore back and dropped the small spade she had been using to loosen the dirt by the tomato plants. She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them.

If she looked to the river, it was as if the past years had never been. The river flowed on just the same as it always had. The sun shimmered above it, too, and the water seemed blue and black. At this distance, it seemed to be standing still. Pa had always said that summer in Virginia could be like summer in hell. Hotter than it was even down in Georgia or Florida, or way out west in California. The river might make it a spell cooler by night, but by day it didn’t seem to help at all. Still, the heat was something she knew well
enough. She’d lived with it all her life. The house had been built to catch every little breeze that might go by.

Turning around, Christa stared up at it. While the river gave away nothing of the tempest of the past four years, the house told it all. Peeling, cracking paint, loose boards, that one step from the back porch still missing. There were a few bullet holes in it from the day that the war had come right to them. Staring at the house, she felt ill. For a moment, she was dizzy. Then her anger and bitterness came sweeping down on her and her fingers trembled.

She should have been grateful that the house was still standing. So many other fine homes had been burned right to the ground. In so many places lone chimneys could be seen, rising up like haunting wraiths from the scorched earth around them. Her house still stood. Cameron Hall. The first bricks had been laid in the sixteen hundreds. The building was a grand lady if ever there had been one. Down its middle ran a huge central hall with broad double doors on the front and rear porch, all of which could be opened to welcome the breezes, to allow a host of beautifully dressed men and women to party and dance out to the moonlit lawn if they so desired.

Even the lawn was ravaged now.

The house still stood! That mattered more than anything. The graceful columns that rose so majestically from the porches might need another coat of paint, but they stood. No fire had scorched them, no cannon had leveled them.

And though the paint was chipping and three-fourths of the fields were lying fallow, her home still stood and still functioned because of her.

The Yanks had been ordered to leave the place alone because of Jesse. Jesse was the oldest male heir, so the place legally came to him. And Jesse had fought for the Union. But the Rebs had left the place alone
because her brother Daniel had fought for the South. Once, the Yanks had nearly burned it, but for a few bright shining moments her family had all managed to band together, neither Yanks nor Rebs, and fought to preserve it.