Frontier Woman (18 page)

Again.

As though he’d heard her plea, Creed repeated the rocking motion, cupping her with both hands to give him better leverage for his thrust.

There it was, that same spiraling sensation, only stronger this time. When Creed thrust the third time, Cricket countered with her own hips, and the feeling was so powerful she felt her knees weaken in response. She grabbed Creed’s shirt in both fists and leaned her cheek against her hand, aware suddenly that her breathing had become uneven, and that Creed was in no better shape.

“Ready to cry uncle?” Creed whispered in her ear.

Cricket raised her head off his chest and looked up into eyes that blazed like topaz jewels. She met his challenge with the rasped warning, “I never give up.”

“So be it.”

Cricket waited, almost detached, as Creed lowered his head toward hers. She saw his tongue come out to moisten his lips, which parted as his mouth opened slightly.
He was
going to kiss her!
As Cricket saw it, she had two choices. She could let Creed kiss her, or she could back away. Either way, Creed won the battle between them. He was too clever by half! Cricket had only moments to make her decision. She admitted reluctantly that the time had come to make a tactical retreat.

As Creed’s lips touched hers, she wrenched herself from his grasp. He hadn’t been expecting her to move, so she was free before he realized she was gone.

Creed stood spread-legged, breathing harshly, his fists bunched and his face a mask of desire.

“So, Brava,” he taunted, “you never retreat?”

“That wasn’t a retreat,” Cricket replied. Why couldn’t she catch her breath? Her body quivered with nervous energy, and she had the craziest urge to seek out that spiraling sensation again.

“Not a retreat? What was it, then?”

Cricket stuck her hands behind her back to hide their trembling. “A temporary disengagement,” she managed with a shaky grin, “while I plan my counterattack.”

“So,” Creed murmured, his voice soft and husky. “You can’t wait to come back for more.”

Cricket couldn’t drag her eyes away from his mouth. He’d taken a step toward her when a loud knock resounded, breaking the spell. Cricket recognized reinforcements when she heard them and started for the door.

A tiny Negro woman stood at the portal. She pushed her way past Cricket into the room. “I’m Belle. Missus Creed wants you to try this dress on so’s I kin stitch it up to fit you.”

Creed’s glance skipped from Cricket to Belle and back before he shook his head in frustration and headed for the door. “I’ll be with Tom,” he said as he left. “We’ll continue this later.”

Creed found his brother in the parlor, sitting at the desk from which he conducted all his plantation business. Creed poured himself a brandy and sat down in the large leather chair next to Tom. He took a gulp of brandy, then leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.

He felt a tremendous sense of well-being in Tom’s presence. Tom was six years older, which had always given him the advantage of age and experience. Tom was wise and all-knowing. Tom could solve any problem. It was Tom who’d kept him sane when he’d returned to Lion’s Dare after he’d discovered his Comanche wife and his son dead of cholera.

Even now Creed tensed at the memory. He’d wanted to murder his father; in fact, he’d come back to Lion’s Dare precisely for that purpose.

“I’ll kill the sonofabitch!” he’d raged. “I’ll flay him alive. I want him to know what it means to suffer.”

Tom was not physically larger than his brother, but when he’d enclosed Creed in his broad, loving arms at the steps leading up to Simon’s room, Creed had hesitated to fight him. Then Tom had said, “You’re too late, Jarrett. He died a week ago.”

He’d howled in pain, as he yanked himself from his brother’s arms and pounded his fists against the wall. He’d cursed Simon in Comanche. He’d cursed him in English, and even in the French he’d learned at the school where his father had sent him, so far away from his wife and child. When his rage was spent, he’d sagged to the steps, his bruised knuckles pressed into his aching eyes. Tom had sat down beside him, not touching, just a comforting presence.

“It’s okay, Jarrett,” Tom had said. “It’s okay for you to cry.”

Creed had fought the tears harder then, to prove he didn’t need to cry. But when Tom had laid his hand on Creed’s head and smoothed the hair back from his brow as their mother had when he was a child, he had turned into his brother’s arms, and the tears had scoured their way down his cheeks.

Tom had held him until the pain was gone, and he’d been dry and hollow inside.

“Why did he do it, Tom? Why didn’t he let me go back?”

“He thought he was doing what was best.”

“And Ma? Did he do what was best for her, too?”

“You know how he felt. Would you have wanted Ma here, knowing that?”

“You would have brought her back, though, wouldn’t you, Tom?”

“I . . . it wasn’t my decision to make.”

“But you don’t think less of Ma for what happened to her, do you?”

“Does it really matter what I think? What’s done is done. Now you have to go on with your life.”

Go on with his life
. Creed had done that. He’d left Lion’s Dare and become a Texas Ranger. But what goes around comes around. He was back at Lion’s Dare with Tom and supposedly married for the second time. And once again he needed Tom’s understanding and wisdom.

Tom crossed his hands on his stomach, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and leaned back in his chair, watching his younger brother speculatively. Creed looked almost asleep. But Tom knew better. He’d seen the coiled tension in his younger brother’s body. When Creed opened his eyes at last, Tom said, “You look tired. Long night?”

“Yes, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

The two brothers shared a companionable chuckle.

Creed took another swallow of brandy and said, “I need your help, Tom.”

“Name it, and it’s yours.”

“It’s not that simple, I’m afraid,” Creed said. “It’s about Cricket.”

Tom’s face remained blank. “What about her?” he asked cautiously.

“It’s hard to explain. What do you know about Rip Stewart?”

“He controls the flatboat trade up and down the river and he’s got several of the cotton agents in Galveston in his pocket. Rich as Croesus, I understand.”

“Cricket is his daughter.”

Tom whistled appreciatively. “He doesn’t approve of the marriage?”

“No. But that’s not the problem.”

“So, what is it?” Tom asked, his curiosity piqued.

“It’s Cricket.” Creed paused, unsure exactly how to explain what he wished of his brother and sister-in-law.

“She’s pregnant,” Tom guessed.

“Hell, no,” Creed blustered. He figured he’d better say what was on his mind before Tom started making other guesses about Cricket which might prove even more embarrassing. “It’s the way she was raised by her father. Cricket has some habits that . . . that aren’t acceptable in polite company. I’d like your help, and Amy’s, of course, in teaching her some things that’d help her get along better in New Orleans.”

“You know we’ll help however we can, but I don’t understand how the daughter of someone as rich as Rip Stewart wouldn’t know how to manage the kind of company you’re going to be seeing in New Orleans.”

Creed heaved a gusty sigh. “It’s a long story. I hardly believe it myself.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” Tom said, “but maybe I ought to get Amy, and you can tell us both what you want from us.”

“That’s fine with me. The sooner I get this off my chest, the better I’m going to feel.”

Tom sought out Amy and brought her back to the parlor.

“Is something wrong with Cricket?” she asked concernedly when she saw Creed’s distress. “She seemed fine when I left her upstairs.”

“She’s fine, Amy,” Creed reassured her. “I need you and Tom to help me with a small problem.”

Amy perched on the settee with Tom beside her while Creed recounted what he knew of Cricket’s upbringing. He skimmed over their relationship, leaving the impression that he and Cricket had fallen in love at first sight and married despite Rip’s disapproval.

“I want to take Cricket with me to New Orleans, but the way she’s been raised, she’s going to end up butting heads with the New Orleans ladies. That’s where you come in, Amy. I was hoping you’d be willing to give Cricket some lessons in feminine deportment that would help her get by, along with a few hints about whatever it is ladies do to keep themselves busy when there are no men around.”

Amy’s eyes teared with sympathy for Cricket’s plight. “Why, Jarrett Creed, of course I’ll be willing to help in any way I can. That poor, dear girl. Imagine being raised without a mother.”

“Where will you be staying in New Orleans?” Tom asked.

“With the American chargé, Beaufort LeFevre.”

“Angelique’s father?” Tom asked.

“Yes.”

Tom whistled, long and low. “What’s Angelique going to say when she finds out you’re married? Isn’t that going to be a little awkward?”

“I never made any promises to Angelique. In fact, quite the opposite is true.”

“Still, the woman was in love with you.”

“It’s important I stay with LeFevre. I’ll have to deal with Angelique the best I can.”

“Good luck,” Tom said, shaking his head.

“I’ll get started tomorrow teaching Cricket a few things that should make her more comfortable when she gets to New Orleans,” Amy promised.

“Thanks, Amy. I’d appreciate that,” Creed said. “And Tom, I’ll need you to keep an eye on your whiskey.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cricket doesn’t know that ladies aren’t supposed to drink that hell-broth. I want to make sure she gets out of the habit before we get to New Orleans.”

Creed watched Tom struggle to hide his shock before he replied as though it were the kind of request he got every day. “Sure. No problem.”

Creed clasped his hands in front of him. “It means a lot to me to know you’re willing to help,” he admitted to the couple.

“What’s family for?” Tom said. “Don’t worry about it. Cricket will do you proud. It’s plain to see from the way she looks at you that she loves you.”

“Yes, well, I love her, too,” Creed said, uncomfortable with lying and finding himself doing it again. “Guess I’ll turn in now. Thanks again.”

Creed took the stairs back up to his bedroom, where he found Cricket restlessly pacing the room from wall to wall in nothing but her chemise and pantalettes.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “Belle took my buckskins when I wasn’t looking and didn’t leave me anything else to wear.”

As angry as Cricket was, her breasts heaved in agitation under the chemise, and her long-legged stride stretched the pantalettes over her buttocks with each step she took.

Creed’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Lord, his body was on fire for her! On her next pass by him he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, stopping her in front of him.

Cricket folded her arms across her chest, pushing her breasts up and out of the chemise. “Well? Now what?”

Creed kept his eyes on her face, reminding himself she was still a virgin, knowing he was lost if he let his gaze wander as it wished. “I spoke with Tom and Amy. I told them you needed their help learning how to act like a lady and—”

“You what?” Cricket had never been so humiliated. Her face flushed with anger as her hands bunched into white-knuckled fists which whipped down to balance on her hips. “How could you?”

“Look, Brava,” Creed reasoned, “what choice did I have? In a few weeks we’ll be heading for New Orleans. I’m going there to argue to the American chargé that Texas is full of civilized folk who form a civilized sovereign nation worthy of receiving trade considerations from the United States. How convincing am I going to be if I show up with a wife in buckskins with barnyard manners?”

“Barnyard manners?”

“Well, maybe that is an exaggeration,” Creed conceded in response to Cricket’s scowling features. “But you have to admit you haven’t shown much inclination to the feminine role since I’ve known you.”

“It’s not who I am,” Cricket railed.

“No, not yet. But it’s what you’ll have to become.”

“I can’t.”

“You can, and you will. You don’t have any choice. It can’t be any more difficult than wrestling or bronc riding or any of the other skills you’ve mastered. If you can learn to do those things, you can learn to be a woman.”

Cricket hugged herself with her arms in an attempt to curb the shivers of fury wracking her body.

“I hate you for this, Creed. I hate you so bad I can taste it.”

Before she could stop him, Creed enfolded her in his arms. His head swooped down, and his lips touched hers for the first time in gentleness. His tongue teased the edge of her lips, urging them to open. Shocked by his boldness, Cricket jerked her head aside and struggled to be free.

Creed released her immediately and stepped back, his heart pounding, his breathing unsteady. In a voice husky with emotion he rasped, “I only wanted to see what your hate tastes like, Brava.”

She could feel the intensity of his gaze and snapped hers up to meet his, daring him to try touching her again.

“Hate me if you will,” he said. “But make no mistake.
You are my wife.
I will kiss you and touch you as I please, and you will do nothing to stop me.”

“I agreed to be your
wife
for one purpose only—and it had nothing to do with kissing or touching. Lay one hand on me, and you’ll find it chopped off.”

“Come here to me, Brava.”

“When pigs fly!”

“Then stay where you are. I’ll come to you.”

How could she have fallen for the same trick twice? If she moved, she’d be admitting she was afraid of him; if she stayed, he’d have her in his arms in an instant. And where could she run in her chemise and pantalettes?

“Go ahead and touch me,” she dared at last, her lip curling in disdain. “Little good it will do you.”

Cricket remained rigid as a corpse when Creed enfolded her in his arms. She ground her teeth to avoid flinching when he gently stroked her cheek with the knuckles of his hand. She wasn’t going to let him get away with this again. Jarrett Creed had cornered her for the very last time.