Dorothy Garlock (24 page)

His kisses became more insistent, and his hands roamed freely. She could feel his pulsating hardness against her thigh . . . this was what she wanted. She lifted her hips toward him, her hands clenched in his hair. He kissed her hard, hungrily, bruisingly. He was between her thighs, rubbing his elongated hardness against her pubis, and unconsciously she began rubbing with him. She threw back her head and strained upward, and still he waited, bringing her nearly to the brink of madness.

“Is this what you want, little fox?” he whispered, and moved the tip of his swollen sex just inside to explore the warm, moist chasm of her being. “Say you want me . . .”

“I want . . . I want . . . Oh, darling—” she whispered on his mouth. She moved and he was inside her.

They came together with the combined force of their passions and created a fierce, explosive, all-compassing world. The hardness plunged inward and upward and began to move within her.

“Oh . . . I can’t! I shouldn’t!” The feverish words came from her lips even as they sought his. She felt a sharp twinge of pain and whispered, “Please . . . please . . . please.”

A giant wave of white-hot pleasure surged over her, and she sank down into a well of shooting stars, fighting to keep her screams of pleasure silent. It was heaven . . . it was hell . . . it was fire, lightning, the pounding of a thousand drums. It was everything, and she clung desperately to the body united with hers. Surely she would never be the same again.

Burr’s breath came in short, hot bursts. The hammering urge to release his passion was acute. He had waited, holding back, listening to her soft, startled cries, feeling her orgasm as a jolting triumph. And then he was free to plunge wildly toward his own fulfillment, and it came like a surging river.

When it was over, Johanna lay gasping and spent, bewildered by the explosion that had rocked her senses. Burr lay on top of her for a moment, his heart pounding against hers, his breath ragged in her ear. When he moved, it was slowly. He pulled himself out of her and, careful not to crush her, sat up on the side of the bed. He looked down at her, and in the dim light she could see that he was smiling.

That smile, or smirk, as she interpreted it, brought her to her senses. She yanked her dress down and sat up. Turning her back to him, she adjusted her bodice. She had behaved like a wanton, a whore, and she felt sick with humiliation. She scrambled to her feet and fought to keep back her tears until she could be alone. She felt revulsion, disgust, and hatred for herself and for him.

He caught her arm and she whirled on him in fury. “I hate and despise you,” she sobbed. “You sicken me!”

He looked at her for a long moment, then chuckled. “I would have swore you loved me a few minutes ago. You called me darling.” A short raspy sound came from his throat that was either a snort or another chuckle. “You may hate me, but you willingly gave me what I wanted. You wanted it, too. I made sure of that. I could’ve done a better job if I’d had more time. I bet you thought you’d have it the first time with a gentleman on a feather bed. Instead you were taken by a bastard on a straw tick. You know, sweetheart, you’re not bad. Given a little time and practice you could get to be as good as Isabella.”

Johanna ran out the door. She didn’t care who saw her. Tears of humiliation almost blinded her as she sped across the porch and up the stairs. She made it to her room, snatched off her clothes, and crawled into bed.

Burr watched her go, a peculiar feeling moving through him. Why had he so desperately wanted her to enjoy his lovemaking? Why had he held back, tortured himself, until he was sure she had reached her peak? He knew she was a virgin, and he’d never have seduced her if she hadn’t promised to marry him. He felt no guilt about that. Now, she really hated him.
I wonder what she thinks,
he thought.
Ladies are taught to act as if they don’t like coupling.
He admitted to himself that he didn’t know much about ladies, but Johanna was one . . . and she had liked it!

But why should I care if she liked it or not?
he asked himself with the next breath. He felt nothing for her, nothing like what Luis felt for Jacy or what Ben had felt for his mother. What happened to them wasn’t going to happen to him. He didn’t want to be tied, heart and soul, to a woman. A man should have a woman to do all the things a woman was made to do, yet keep his heart free. That was what he was going to do with this one.

Burr stretched out on the bed and felt a strange envy when he heard Jacy’s soft laugh come out of the darkness. For a moment he speculated on how it would be if Johanna had responded to him out of love and not just in response to his passion. How would it be if she whispered words of love in his ear, and there was a softening of her eyes when they looked up into his? He turned restessly in bed and wondered about the strange, twisting feeling that churned inside him.

F
ourteen

L
uis rode up out of the wash and halted the stallion so that the sorrel mare he was leading could scramble up the incline. He looked behind him to see if they had left a swirl of dust hanging in the air, then moved on toward the mountains. He had left his ranch at daybreak with the Arabian he had bought from Willard Risewick and the mare that was to be his gift to Jaceta. Of all his horses, he prized these two most. He intended to stable them in the stout barn behind the stone house while the Apaches were encamped in the valley. The rest of the
remuda
would be driven up by the
vaqueros
and put inside the pole corral. There they would be less tempting to the Indians.

Squinting under his pulled-down hat brim, he studied the terrain with care and thought about the small, bright-eyed girl who had come into his life. When he thought about her it was like breathing clean, fresh air after being long in the confines of a smokehouse. Sometimes the most important thing in a man’s life comes at the most unexpected time. He hadn’t believed himself capable of feeling this all-consuming love for another person. Now, no hour of the day passed that he didn’t think of her, she was always with him, and even when they were together they didn’t talk a lot because much of the time there was no need for words. It was something that existed between them that they both understood.

He moved out of the shadows and topped out on a rise. The ranch house lay below him. He stopped and studied the terrain again. It was hard to focus his eyes, but he took his time, measuring the sunlit vastness, the great shoulders of red rock, the splashes of green, and the splotch of brown that comprised the ranch buildings. It had been a long time since he had been this cautious. Nothing must happen to him now. His life, suddenly, had become precious to him.

He turned his eyes toward the southwest. Something stirred among the tall grasses growing along the creek. He waited, making no sudden movement. As he watched, the grasses moved in a motion against the breeze, and Luis kept his eyes riveted on the spot. When the grass was disturbed again, Luis knew the movement was too cautious to be caused by an animal. It must be an Indian, because only an Indian could move yet stir the grass so little.

Since his last meeting with Gray Cloud, Luis had had an uneasy feeling about the Apache. Something had been eating at him. Luis had traded with Gray Cloud for several years. It had started when the Indian had tried to steal his horse. Instead of killing Gray Cloud, Luis had whipped him and thereby gained his respect. An Indian would deal with a fighting man, but he’d kill without compunction a man who wouldn’t or couldn’t defend himself. It was unfortunate, though, that Burr had been present during the fight. Although he hadn’t met Gray Cloud since, as far as Luis knew, the Indian hated Burr for having witnessed his defeat.

Luis watched until he was certain there was only one person moving furtively among the grasses and observed the direction he was headed. Luis dismounted and tied the horses under a slab of rock where they would be protected from view. He ducked into a narrow space between two boulders. Once he started down the narrow watercourse he walked slowly, for the trail switched and doubled back and was incredibly narrow in places. The sun was blazing hot and he didn’t need to hurry. He was reasonably sure that he and the Indian would reach the spring behind the house at the same time.

Luis stopped and removed his hat, peered down the trail ahead, and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Before continuing his descent, he pulled his shirt out of his pants to cover the glinting silver handles of his pistols. Silver reflects sunlight, and he’d be damned if he’d give the Indian a perfect target. He moved on around a jog in the trail and saw the spring. He also saw a flash of color, then heard a woman’s angry voice—Johanna’s. Burr and Johanna were at the spring. He could see their shining blond heads.

Slowly, methodically, Luis searched the area for the Indian. He spotted him, then with infinite care inched to where he could look out onto the place where the man would approach. Maybe the Indian was just curious about the two white people by the spring. He would wait.

The Apache came into view. It wasn’t Gray Cloud but one of the braves who rode with him. Luis wondered if Gray Cloud had sent him to spy. The Indian ran in a crouch until he reached a clump of coarse gray shrubs, then knelt behind them. Swiftly and silently Luis followed until he was no more than forty feet behind him. He reached into his boot for a long, thin-bladed knife, his eyes never leaving the back of the kneeling warrior. The words Johanna and Burr hurled at each other were the only sounds to be heard, although Luis could not have said what they were saying, so intent was he on the Indian.

Several minutes passed before the Indian moved. Slowly he reached into the quiver on his back and removed an arrow. Luis waited until the arrow was in place and the Indian rose to shoot it. Luis let his breath out easily and stood. The knife shot from his hand with deadly accuracy. He heard the thud as the blade went into the Indian’s back below the shoulder blade and threw him forward. There was the crackle of brush as the body fell, then no sound except for the angry voices coming from the direction of the spring.

Luis could not be sure he had killed the man. Cautiously he maneuvered himself toward the still form lying face down in the brush. In a matter of minutes he stood over the dead body of an Indian he recognized as one who had come often with Gray Cloud to trade. Luis decided that no doubt the young warrior wanted to be known for something other than stealing horses and thought to build his reputation as a great warrior by killing Sky Eyes and hanging his white hair from his belt.

Luis pulled his knife from the corpse, wiped it carefully, and returned it to his boot. His squinted eyes searched the landscape once more. Once he was satisfied that the brave had acted alone, he moved quickly and quietly away.

*  *  *

When Willard Risewick left the valley, some of the tension was gone from the ranch house. A Macklin Valley rider guided him and his men out of the valley and set them on a course across the mountains to El Paso.

The days passed slowly for Johanna. She cooked and cleaned during the day and spent her evenings remodeling a blue satin dress that had belonged to their mother into a wedding dress for Jacy. There were faint shadows beneath her eyes. Glad as she was for Jacy’s happiness, Johanna was tormented by thoughts of her own future: an unloved wife living in a house filled with unpleasant memories.

Isabella flitted in and out of the house with a proprietary air, her long skirts swishing around her bare ankles. Burr made no attempt to keep her visits to his room secret. In fact, it seemed to Johanna that he flaunted his young Spanish mistress at every opportunity. It was both hurtful and humiliating for Johanna. Although she tried to ignore both of them, she could not ignore her feelings. It was as though the wound was opened afresh each time she saw them together. She began to see Burr’s smiles as cruel and insensitive. The glances from his insolent blue eyes struck her in her most vulnerable place. No venom-tipped arrow could have pierced her heart more deeply. Johanna dared not show this inner turmoil, and so her face remained placid, even as Burr’s penetrating gaze searched it for some sign of emotion. She never allowed a flicker of hatred or a glimmer of tears in her eyes; there was nothing for him to see but a cold, beautiful mask.

The subject of Bucko and his mother was constantly at the back of Johanna’s mind. It was one subject Ben refused to discuss. He urged her to talk to Burr about the boy, but that was the last thing she intended to do. Anger and bitter shame began to churn within her each time she saw him. And each night, lying in her bed, filled with disgust and self-loathing, she would stare into the blackness of the room and hate him with a hatred that was part despair and part an unnameable something that caused her heart to beat faster. She knew that she would never forget or forgive the man who had taken the one thing that she could have freely given only once.

One morning on her way to the spring she heard the sound of horse’s hooves behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Burr on his big bay, his hat pulled down over his eyes, and slumped in the saddle as if he were very tired. Johanna stepped out of his way, thinking he wanted to pass, but he pulled the horse up beside her. She saw a thousand white lines around his eyes and his face was covered with stubble, but it remained as impassive as an Indian’s while he sat silently looking down at her. He had been working hard. The hair that showed beneath his hat was wet with sweat and curled into tight ringlets, and his shirt had huge wet circles under the arms. He dismounted and reached for the wooden bucket she was carrying while he handed her his horse’s reins. She walked beside him, leading the horse.

“Do you ride?”

The question startled her. She had expected him to give her a sarcastic lecture on the hazzards of coming to the spring alone. His orders had been for her not to do so while the Apaches were encamped.

“Yes, some. I don’t ride well, but Papa taught me to ride astride. He thought it rather silly for a woman to perch atop a horse when she had two perfectly good legs to help her hold on.”