Colton's Folly (Native American contemporary romance) (10 page)

He took her face in his hands, brushing the hair back from her forehead, passing his thumbs gently across her eyebrows and down her cheeks, and touching her lips lightly, outlining them from corner to co
rner. He lifted her chin, studying her again: her mouth, her eyes, her mouth once more.

She slipped her hands to his waist and moved closer, knowing his body would be rock-hard and warm, then reached up and locked her fingers behind his neck. The movement molded them together from breast to belly to thigh in heart-stopping discovery, and with a soft moan he wrapped his strong arms around her and lowered his mouth to hers.

Abby felt his lips soft and cool as he moved from her mouth to her closed eyelids, her cheek, the corner of her mouth and then to her lips once more. But behind his control she sensed an aching passion that struggled to break free. That thought set the blood searing in her veins and started a liquid fire spreading through her. She tangled her fingers in the thick mass of his heavy, black hair and held on as her body trembled with need for him; her lips parted beneath his gently probing tongue and answered its quest with her own. And because it was all new to her, and because he was new to her, she let herself feel every wonderful, joyous sensation he aroused.

His hands were on her back, fingers splayed out across her spine, with his head beside hers and his lips against her ear, when he suddenly took a ragged breath and whispered desperately, “No more!”

He pushed her away, his features hard and distorted with emotion. His hands on her shoulders trembled; his chest rose and fell rapidly as he fought for control. Confused, Abby reached out and put a hand on his arm, but his torment was so obvious that she found it impossible to speak more than his name, softly, tentatively, with a question in her voice.

The eyes that looked at her were filled with denial of what they had just shared, and he whispered fiercely, “Go on up to bed!”

She would have challenged his right to order her around, but found herself biting back her words. The flames flickering just beyond his right shoulder seemed to find an echo in his eyes, eyes that burned with a great inner fire--but whether of passion or anger she could no longer tell. She only knew that the hard lines at the corners of his mouth and the set of his jaw were warning signs to be heeded.

She inclined her head and silently brushed past him. At the foot of the stairs she turned to look at him. His eyes were on her, black and unfathomable. She would have returned to his side, but he seemed to know that and held his arm out, palm extended toward her, as if to warn her off. Then he moved into the living room, and she heard the faint sigh of seat cushions as he lowered himself to the couch. Stunned, shaking with a newly aroused desire that could not be assuaged, Abby climbed the stairs to her room and softly closed the door behind her, certain she would get no sleep. She was right.

Cat was not at breakfast the next morning. He’d gone into the hills, Martha said, to do some thinking. When questioned about his return, he’d said, “When I’m in control again.”

“Funny thing,” Martha added. “He didn’t eat, not anything at all.” She hesitated as she watched Abby push away the plate holding her own breakfast and merely reach for her coffee cup. “Don’t seem like anyone’s got much appetite today.”

Abby stood by the window of the school board office, looking out at a perfect late-spring day. The color of the sky had deepened to cobalt-blue; the clouds were fluffy white and scudded across in a freshening breeze. New-green grass and leafy buds shimmered in the sunlight, and the air through the open window smelled clean and rich with new life. I wonder if Cat is seeing this beauty, she thought, and from what vantage point? He’d been away for three weeks, and no one knew where.

The members of the board filed in and took their seats. Abby moved to the center of the room and they exchanged greetings.

“You have a problem?” John Hunter asked.

“You know, of course, that I took the children out to the Matthews ranch a few weeks ago. We’re still discussing their experiences, and they refer back to that day repeatedly, so I’d like to schedule a series of such trips to places where they can see people working at various types of jobs. It’s important that they know what’s out there, and that they begin to think about what might be right for each of them.”

“Those options you talked about when you first came here?”

“Exactly,” she replied.

“What about their schoolwork?” someone asked.

“This may provide a special incentive,” Emma interjected, “to work hard in order to spend time away from the classroom.” She looked from John to Abby and smiled. “I know you’ve taken that into consideration.”

“I have. I would rearrange our classroom schedules, rework my study plans to incorporate the things they’ll be learning on these trips, and make sure to have supplementary reading material on hand.”

“This will make a lot of extra work for you, won’t it?” Abby nodded. “Yes, but I think it will be worth it.” “You gonna expect extra pay?”

Abby turned to examine the man who had asked the question. In his forties, dressed in a blue denim work shirt and worn jeans, his belligerence plain on his weathered face, Claude Schiller lounged arrogantly against the back of his chair and waited for Abby to respond to his challenge. Her face went hot with anger and embarrassment, and for a moment she found herself without words. Then she walked over to stand directly in front of him. She leaned forward and looked into his eyes, bracing herself against the table with her outstretched arms.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” she replied with exaggerated sweetness, “but now that you were kind enough to mention
it. Instead
of completing her sentence she gave hi
m
a smile to match her tone of voice and pulled back.

Emma chuckled. “Put away your knife, Claude.”

Abby looked at
him
pointedly. “Are there any more questions?”

He grinned and held up a hand in denial. “I never make the same mistake twice in the same day.”

Abby laughed. “You can have another shot at me next time.”

Without the formality of a vote, the board agreed that Abby’s plan deserved a test.

Their trips into the “world of work” proved to be a great success. A driver was recruited, and the school bus that had once transported children to school in Crossroads was overhauled for their use. In one of a series of letters to Arthur, designed to keep him up-to-date on developments in the school, Abby wrote with amazement that her relationship with the children was “better than I could have imagined--with such an exchange of ideas and feelings that I’m learning as much as I’m teaching. Glorious!”

During their correspondence she asked Arthur for funds to purchase equipment and supplies, noting that the school board probably had no money left for such things after paying her salary. Arthur came through for her, writing that the money would soon be on its way and to expect to hear from the board. And hear from them she did, although not in the way she’d expected.

Cat came to the school late one afternoon as she was going over the next day’s study plan. He stood in the doorway watching her work, reliving the last time they’d been together and their passionate response to each other. The mere thought of those moments stirred him. His dark eyes traced her profile, lingering on the curve of her cheek and the lips he remembered as both sweetly soft and demanding beneath his. Damn! He thought angrily. I came here to do a job, not gawk like a schoolboy. But he stood and watched.

Sensing his presence, Abby turned and saw him lounging against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest and one ankle crossed casually over the other. She remembered the feel of those strong arms around her and the muscled hardness of his chest beneath her cheek, and was glad to see him. Then she looked at his eyes, which by now had become the barometers of his anger, and at his mouth as it narrowed into a grim line, and knew that his coming to see her was bad news.

Cat saw the wariness cloud her usually clear eyes and read it as fear, and therefore as guilt. She knows, he thought. She knows she’s been found out. He walked toward her and tossed a sheet of paper on the desk.

Abby watched it settle slowly on the stack that was already there, then looked up at him. “What’s this?” she asked.

“The school board got a check for five thousand dollars from the BLA to buy a computer and a typewriter and some other equipment for the school, but this letter says they can’t spend it without your approval. I’m here to find out why that is.”

Abby took up the letter, rapidly scanning it and getting angrier with each line. “Damn!” she swore unconsciously. “Who the hell wrote this garbage?” She ran her eyes down the page to the signature of an unknown bureaucrat, then sighed with relief. “Thank God, I knew it couldn’t be Arthur.”

She held out the letter, but Cat ignored it. “It’s a mistake, Cat. I’ll get it straightened out and have this...what’s- his-name’s head.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

It was a seemingly harmless question, but it was delivered with such menace that a message sped to Abby’s brain and adrenaline began to pump through her system, quickening her heartbeat and sharpening her senses. She banished the memory of the way he’d made her feel that night only weeks ago, the way he could make her feel by simply walking into the room, and focused on the danger he embodied at this moment.

“Back off,” she commanded, her voice cold and unyielding. “I won’t have you throwing your weight around with me.”

“Don’t tell me what you will or won’t have, lady. I’m here to tell you you’re in big trouble, and you’d better start giving me some answers.”

Suddenly Abby needed to meet him as an equal; she rose from her chair, careful to keep the desk between them, and met his angry glare head-on. “Are you getting paid for this inquisition, or does it fall into the category of fun?” There’s that flash of the tiger, he thought with familiar, perverse pleasure. She won’t fold.

“It falls into the category of getting to the truth. And so far I’ve heard nothing to convince me you’re not running some sort of scam.” He took a step forward. “How come you have control of the money?”

Her eyes widened and her face went pale as the meaning of his words registered. “Is that what this is about? You think I’m trying to steal the money? My God!”

She went to the window and looked out, seeing nothing, feeling a roar of anger in her ears, wanting to scream out that anger. Instead she turned to him and explained with a calm she did not feel, “I wrote to Arthur asking for money to buy equipment for the school. He said the board would get a check and would be instructed to consult with me as to what we needed. I was merely to give my recommendations; I assumed that the decisions would be theirs.” She glared at him. “I have no idea why that idiot Holdings wrote what he did.”

“How come that letter says part of the money goes to you? Aren’t you satisfied with what the school board can pay you?”

“If you’re trying to provoke me,” she snapped, “you’re succeeding!”

Her eyes went stormy again, and Cat saw something there that he’d never associated with Abby
--hatred. His stomach lurched violently at the thought, but he persisted. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The man is relentless, she thought, and rebelled. “I’m not answering any more of your questions,” she muttered, and made for the door. He grabbed her arm as she went past and pulled her toward him, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes blazed with golden fire, and color stained her cheeks. Her body stiffened as she fought his restraining hands on her arms, but he pulled her closer, holding her against his body with her arms trapped between them. Grunting with rage, she tried to lever herself away from him, but his hold tightened. One arm held her crushed against his chest, and the other lifted as his fingers twined themselves in her dark, tousled curls and held her fast.

“Don’t,” she protested as his mouth came slowly closer. She pushed against him again, demanding angrily, “Let me go!”

He heard her protest, but some maddening impulse sought to turn her anger to passion, wanted her trembling in his arms,
her heart beating wildly, her lips parted beneath his. He lowered his mouth to hers, moving his lips gently, sweetly wooing her, wearing down her resistance until a soft whimper sounded in his ear and he realized that he was no longer holding her captive. Her arms were around him, and she clung to him as if to keep from drowning.

He felt her breasts against his chest. His hand went to the waistband of her slacks and loosened her silky blouse from its confinement, then slipped beneath it to feel the warm pulsing flesh that rose above the confines of her bra. He cupped the lacy roughness and felt a hardened nipple thrusting against his palm. She moaned against his mouth and tangled her fingers in the thicket of hair at the nape of his neck. He knew that he wanted her. She was manipulative and a phony, and a lot of other things he didn’t want to consider, but God, how he wanted her.

He pulled back and took her face in his hands, watching as her eyes opened and the passion faded from their depths. He knew he could have taken her, that she would not have denied him. But he knew just as surely that she was as wrong for him as he was for her. He tightened his hold until a worry line appeared across her forehead and a hint of fear replaced the last remnants of desire.