Holt's Gamble (34 page)

* * *

A hot, dry wind blew across the flat sweep of prairie, sucking the moisture from everything in its path. A small cloud of dust, drawing steadily nearer to the fort, announced the return of the burial detail which had left hours earlier.

Kierin waited, hugging her arms across her chest, cold in spite of the fierce heat. The five soldiers, Jacob, and Jim Kelly had been gone since dawn, and now the sun hung overhead like a fiery ball.

All morning, the fear had festered and grown inside her. What if they found him dead?—the litany repeated itself in her head—his body riddled with arrows like the soldier who'd returned last night. And if, by some miracle, he was alive, why hadn't he returned? Even more agonizing was the thought that he could be lying wounded somewhere, dying by inches, without her beside him.

Dry-eyed, her mouth set in a determined line, Kierin took a deep breath of the parched, sage-scented air, shaking loose such thoughts. There would be time enough to grieve if they found him dead.
But they wouldn't,
she told herself over and over. She couldn't allow herself to believe it was so.

The distant wagon rattled over the rutted ground as the detail approached. Shimmering waves of heat played tricks on her eyes, making it harder to see them clearly. She shaded her eyes with her hand, straining to focus. There were two on the benched seat driving the team. Five, no, six others rode alongside. Another rider-less horse appeared to be tethered behind. Eight men altogether.

Eight. Her heart leapt into her throat. Not seven. She started to run, leaving the towering log gates of the adobe fort behind her.
Oh, God, please, let it be him.
Ahead, a rider spurred his horse forward, putting distance between himself and the wagon. Kierin let out a cry as she recognized his silhouette. There was no mistaking the fluid grace of the man in the saddle.

Clay was off his horse before it completely stopped, and scooping her into his outstretched arms, he twirled her around and around. Kierin released all the tears she'd been holding back in a torrent of happiness.

"Clay. Oh, Clay."

Still suspending her in the cradle of his embrace, he covered her mouth with a kiss as fraught with relief as her own. His arms cinched around her, pulling her closer, ever closer. She felt his fingers in her hair, stroking and rediscovering it at once. When the kiss ended, his breathing was as ragged as her own.

"God, it feel's good to hold you again," he whispered.

She pulled away slightly so she could see his face. A day's growth of beard shadowed his jaw and fatigue lined his eyes. "They s-said you were killed."

He pressed a kiss in her palm before he replied, "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

She caught sight of the bloodstained rag tied around his arm. "Clay—you're hurt!"

"It's nothing," he said, pulling her into his arms again. "Just a graze, that's all. I'm all right."

Kierin bowed her head against his chest. "I wanted to believe you were, but that soldier came in last night and said-"

"Jacob told me." Tracing a thumb across her cheek, he wiped at her tears. "I managed to make it to a trader's cabin when the killing started. I was lucky. I had a horse." He closed his eyes at the memory. "Christ. It was awful. The men were all on foot. A soldier grabbed onto Taeva and I yanked him up. But he'd already taken two arrows and was bleeding badly. We made it back to Bordeau's, a trader who lives near the encampment, but the Sioux were threatening to burn his cabin down all night."

He shook his head. "Bordeau felt it would be best if the soldier parted company with his cabin as soon as humanly possible."

Clay motioned his head back to the approaching wagon. "He's still alive, but thank God I ran into the patrol with the wagon on the way back to the fort. I don't think he could have made it much farther on horseback."

Clay stooped and picked up his forgotten hat from the ground where it had fallen. Together, they walked to retrieve Taeva, who stood cropping at the brownish grass nearby.

Jim Kelly and Jacob rode up beside them. Jacob's relieved expression was tempered by what he'd been through himself that morning. "I tol' you I'd find him."

Kierin touched his hand. "Thank you, Jacob."

Flanked by the two, she and Clay walked back. Inside the gates, several men were helping the wounded man from the wagon. Lieutenant Fleming looked at the body beneath the canvas tarp. Fleming's face turned a sickly white and he rocked back a step.

"A-are you sure this is Grattan?" he asked one of the soldiers as he dropped the tarp. "How... how can you tell?"

"Yes, sir. It's Grattan, all right," the soldier answered with downcast eyes. "We, ah, identified him by the pocket watch he was wearing. It was—inscribed."

Fleming cleared his throat. "Very good, Corporal. See that he gets a proper box. We'll, ah... be sending his body back to Fort Leavenworth."

As the detail pulled the body from the wagon, Fleming turned to Clay. "I'd like a word with you, Mr. Holt."

Clay turned a disparaging look on the sandy-haired lieutenant. "Later." He took Kierin's arm and started to go—

"Holt—"

Clay turned sharply on the lieutenant. "I
said
later. Right now, I'm gonna clean up, talk to... my wife." He glanced at Kierin, who was watching him with a proud smile, then at the blazing sun overhead. "I'll be back in two hours. That soon enough?"

Fleming, aware that he was drawing an audience, pursed his lips and nodded curtly. Then, he turned on his polished boot heel and strode away.

The sergeant Kierin had met in the records office yesterday approached them. "Mr. Holt?"

Clay glanced inquiringly at him.

"Sergeant Damon," the man said, extending his hand. "I wanted to thank you for what you tried to do out there." Emotion cracked his voice. "Most of those men were friends of mine."

Clay's weary glance followed the soldiers carrying Grattan's shrouded body away. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more."

"Yes, sir." Damon pushed his spectacles back into place with his finger. "I just thought... well, with the Sioux still a threat, you might like to use my quarters to clean up instead of going back to the wagons. I'm on duty this afternoon." He sensed Clay's hesitation. "It's not much, but it's private."

Clay looked at Kierin and her smile convinced him.

"Thank you, Sergeant. I think we'll take you up on that."

Damon instructed a private to see to Clay's horse, then walked them over to the two-story, wood-framed "Old Bedlam." Green shutters at the windows and bi-level verandas gave the building a strangely homey appeal in contrast to its desolate surroundings.

The sound of their heels on the wooden floor echoed down the cool, vacant hallways. The heat of the day hadn't yet penetrated the first floor of the building.

Damon's room was small, Kierin noted, but as clean and orderly as his office had been. A small bed occupied one corner and a washstand and chair backed up against the far wall. A worn pair of regulation-issue trousers hung neatly from a peg on the wall near the door.

Damon turned to Kierin before leaving. "My condolences again about your family, ma'am." He glanced at Clay. "I'm glad it turned out better for you this time."

Kierin gulped back the tears that gathered at the back of her throat. Avoiding Clay's questioning stare, she gave the other man a wan smile. "Thank you, Sergeant."

When he had left and they'd closed the door behind them, Clay took her by the shoulders. "What was that all about?"

Haltingly, she told him what she'd learned about her brother and father—about another massacre, another time. "I still can't believe it's true," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not sure I ever will."

Clay held her tightly, allowing her anguished tears to dampen his shirt. "I'm so sorry, love."

"All I want to think about right now is having you back in my arms," she replied. "I was so afraid they'd killed you."

"I'm right here," he soothed, stroking her hair and pressing a kiss against her forehead.

She leaned into his comforting touch, glad for its solid strength. She couldn't think about her brother now. She had Clay, alive, in her arms. Her moments with him were too precious to waste on tears.

Tilting her head up, she reached for him on tiptoe until their mouths met in a fire storm of passion. His body fused with hers like heated metal, throbbing with need and wanting. Clay's hands massaged her back in long sensuous strokes, sending currents of desire through her. Through her clothes, he cupped her buttocks in his hands and dipped his knees, so his hips fit tightly against hers. She felt him there against her, pressing his swollen need into her abdomen. She wanted him inside her. She longed to be a part of him, in body as well as spirit.

Their clothes quickly became an obstacle to the burning need to touch each other, skin to skin. Wordlessly, they stripped off the hindering articles until they stood naked before one another. Clay's gaze roamed over the ivory perfection of her body, stunned, as always, by the power she had over him. He scooped her into his arms, savoring the soft silk of her skin against his.

The bed springs sang out as he dropped a knee to the mattress and gently lowered her down. He lay atop her, his mouth raining moist kisses across her face.

"All I could think of when the shooting started was that I might never see you again." His lips brushed against hers as he spoke. "This face..." He trailed small kisses across her cheek. "These eyes..." Her lids fluttered closed as he kissed them, one at a time. "I couldn't bear the thought of that."

"Don't ever leave me again, Clay," she begged, combing her fingers through the dark curls at the back of his head. "Promise me..."

His soul-reaching kiss answered her and her questions fell away into the abyss of his lovemaking. His lips burned a path down the hollow of her throat and onto the curve of her breasts. She shivered as he teased her sensitive, swollen nipple with his tongue, first caressing it, then taking it fully into his mouth. She arched up to meet him and let out a soft moan of pleasure.

Her hands moved up and down the sleek warmth of his back, feeling the ripple of his muscles as he consumed her. He was her fire, her life, her reason for being. Her fingers traced a path down his ribs, feeling him quiver in response, until her hand met the fierce warmth of his hardness and she closed her fingers around it. She felt his body jump as if from an electric shock and he buried his face in the valley between her breasts with a groan.

Stroking, gently stroking, she felt the fire build within him. His hand had dipped to the small triangle of down at the juncture of her legs. Though lovemaking was still so new between them, the touch of his fingers in such intimate contact felt so right. Already, he seemed to know exactly where to touch to stoke her desire. It seemed to do the same for him.

A fine sheen of sweat dampened his chest and she thanked whoever was responsible for bringing him back to her. She felt unable to get close enough. His touch wasn't enough. She needed more.

"Clay?" she whispered.

He smiled against her mouth. "Shhh-hh," he murmured back. "You feel so good."

She was wet and ready for him, yet he stoked her desire with a practiced hand until she was nearly out of her mind with wanting.

"Now... please, Clay... I... want you... inside me," she begged.

"Now? You sure? Because I could always—"

She felt his grin against her neck. "Now. Please. Right now."

"Your wish is my command." He poised himself above her and entered her in one swift stroke, making her gasp with pleasure. Pushed beyond the brink of control, his body moved with hers in a rhythm old as time. The world fell away as they clung to each other. Heartbeat to heartbeat, silk against steel, they drowned in the waves of passion that flooded over them like a violent, sprawling tide. It drew them in and spiraled them up as one toward the crest of rapture. At last, exploding together, his groan of release mingled in the still, dry air with her strangled cry. It was a fulfillment so fierce it left them both gasping for breath.

He slumped heavily against her, and she felt his heartbeat gradually slow from a furious pounding to a steady thud.

They lay like that for a while, until their breaths returned to normal. For a moment, she thought he'd gone to sleep.

"Is it like this for everyone?" she wondered. Only after she heard his husky chuckle did she realize she'd spoken the question out loud.

"Not by a long shot." Clay wasn't a man to make comparisons. He rarely did it, and for good reason. But he did know he'd never felt so utterly complete, so balanced, as he did when he was with her. He was experienced enough to know that what they shared was rare and precious. It was a gift he vowed never to take lightly.

His body was damp with a sheen of perspiration, and reluctantly, he peeled his weight off her. She tightened her arms around him, afraid he would leave her.

"I'm not going anywhere, love," he soothed with a chuckle. "You've left me too weak to walk."

"Good," she said, laughing. "Perhaps I should keep you this way. Then you can't get into trouble."

His flattened palm teased her nipple again. "If that's what it takes, madam, I'm at your service."