Maverick Heart (28 page)

The women settled Rand in a chair at the kitchen table and hurried to collect the things they would need to clean up his face and hands.

“That cut on your cheek may need stitches,” Verity said.

“Put a plaster on it, Mother. It’ll be fine.”

“Do you have anything I could use, Miles?” Verity asked.

Miles opened the top drawer of the sideboard, where he kept medicines and bandages in the niche beside the spoons and held up a sticking plaster. “Will this do?”

“I suppose it will have to, if Rand won’t agree to stitches.” Verity manipulated the cut on Rand’s cheek to close the gap and applied the bandage.

“Ow, Mother.”

“Don’t be a baby, Rand. If you insist on fighting, you have to suffer the consequences.”

Miles chuckled. “If I knew two pretty ladies were going to fuss over me, I think I might be able to rustle up some fisticuffs.”

“Don’t you dare!” Verity warned.

Rand hissed as Freddy dipped his entire right hand into a bowl of water. “That hurts!”

“What do you expect?” Freddy said with asperity. “I don’t see a single knuckle that isn’t torn and bleeding.”

Miles recommended a slab of raw meat for Rand’s black eye, but Rand said he would rather put up with the swelling than go to so much fuss.

“If it’s all the same to everybody, I’d like to lie down somewhere for a while. I feel a little woozy.”

Miles tipped Rand’s chin up to look into his eyes. “You seeing double?”

“No. I’m just a little dizzy.”

“Is there something wrong with him?” Verity asked Miles.

“Aside from all the cuts and bruises, not a thing,” Miles replied. “He’ll be fine.”

Rand rose and headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Verity asked, hands on hips.

“To the bunkhouse to lie down.”

Verity pointed to the bedroom door. “You’ll lie down right here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Mother—”

“Miles, tell him not to argue with me,” Verity said.

“Don’t argue with your mother, Rand. Besides, you’d lose face with the hands if they caught you lying down in the middle of the day—even after a licking like the one you just took.”

“You’re kidding,” Rand said.

Miles shook his head. “Afraid not. There’s no mollycoddling here.”

“Mollycoddling?” Verity said. “He’s just been beaten within an inch of his life!”

Miles turned to her, his face somber, his piercing gray eyes hooded. “If you two women weren’t here, I’d have cleaned him up and sent him back out to work the rest of the day.”

“What kind of place is this?” Verity asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Unforgiving. Unrelenting. A man here doesn’t get second chances.”

“All the more reason Rand should take time to recover from this awful brawl.”

Miles shrugged. “I won’t argue the matter.”

Rand picked up his new Western hat with its snakeskin band—it had simply appeared on his bunk one morning—and gingerly set it on his head. “Guess I’ll be getting back to work.”

“Suit yourself,” Miles said. But he was thinking his son had sand. He wondered whether Rand had inherited any of his grit and gumption from his father, or whether it was the way Verity had raised Rand that had given him such strong character. Likely the latter, for which, he supposed, he ought to thank her sometime.

“Rand, you can’t do this,” Verity protested.

“Please don’t worry, Mother. I’ll be fine.”

Freddy bit her lip but said nothing.

“What? No complaints? No criticism?” Rand chided her, slipping a torn knuckle under her chin and forcing her to look him in the eye.

“You heard what Miles said. The other men expect you back at work.”

He caressed her chin between his finger and thumb. “Thanks, Freddy,” he murmured.

“For what?”

“For having confidence in me.”

“I’d feel better if you’d let me come along, Rand. I promise I won’t get in the way.”

“What about it, sir? Can Freddy come along and help mend fence?”

“I don’t see why not,” Miles said. “It might be useful to have someone around if you keel over.”

“Let’s go,” Rand said, ushering Freddy out
ahead of him. “I’ll bring her back for supper,” he promised.

The instant the front door closed behind them, Verity whirled on Miles. “I can’t believe what I just saw. He has no business walking around injured like that!”

“You’ve raised him to be a fine, strong young man, Verity. Now let him act like one.”

“He should be in bed.”

“If he wants to be boss of the Muleshoe someday, he’s doing exactly what he should be doing.”

“What’s so important about impressing a bunch of misfits in strange hats and cowboy boots?” Verity ranted.

Miles eyes turned flinty. “He isn’t doing it to prove anything to them. He’s doing it to prove something to himself.”

“Exactly what is he proving?”

“That he can keep going when he doesn’t think he can. That nothing can beat him down. That his body is only a vessel, and his mind can make it work far beyond what it should be able to endure.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I am.”

“It seems your lessons were harder than mine.”

His lip curled. “I doubt that. Different, perhaps.”

“I don’t want to lose him, Miles.”

“Neither do I, Verity.”
Not now. Not yet. Not ever in my lifetime
.

He watched her deep-blue eyes turn liquid, then
brim with tears. He opened his arms, and she stepped into them. He had missed having her there. She had only come to him for comfort, but she had come to him.

And then she whispered, “Make love to me, Miles.”

His heart thudded. He didn’t say a word, afraid he would say the wrong thing. He simply picked her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, closing the door behind them with his foot.

He sat her on the bed and stood before her to undress. He unknotted his bandanna and let it drop, then started unbuttoning his shirt. He yanked it down off his shoulders, then pulled his long john shirt up over his head.

She stood and took the two steps that brought her close enough to touch. Her fingertips roamed through the dark hair on his chest, then slid around him to caress the awful scars on his back. “Turn around, Miles.”

“Verity—”

“I want to see. Turn around.”

Miles felt as though someone were tightening a band around his chest, making it impossible to breathe, but he did as she bid him. He had seen the scars himself only once, nineteen years ago, by holding his shaving mirror up before an oval dressing mirror in a room in the Menger Hotel in San Antonio. The sight had made him gag.

He flinched as her fingers traced several of the dozens of lash marks left by the cat-o’-nine-tails. Then he felt her lips against his flesh.

When he allowed himself to breathe again, his exhale become a groan.

“Miles.”

She touched his arm, urging him to turn around again to face her and when he didn’t, moved around to stand in front of him. She braced her hands on his forearms and stood on tiptoe to kiss the scar at the edge of his mouth.

That bit of tenderness broke the bounds of restraint that had held him still for her examination. His arms circled her and pulled her tight against him. His palms cupped her buttocks in the worn denim, rubbing her belly against his hardened shaft. His mouth captured hers and, with a groan of yearning and satisfaction, he thrust his tongue into her mouth in an imitation of their bodies being joined.

“I want you,” he said urgently against her lips. “I need you.”
It isn’t safe to love her
.

“Yes, Miles. Yes.”
To anything. To everything
.

He lifted her into his arms and laid her on the bed.

Verity never took her eyes off Miles as he unbuttoned her buttons, one at a time. She would have been just as happy if he had ripped the shirt off her, but he removed it slowly and carefully, briefly caressing her stomach, her shoulders, her back, until she was trembling when he was done.

He untied her chemise and drew it over her head, dipping his mouth to capture one of her nipples while her hands were caught overhead in the
garment. Once she was free, her fingers tunneled into his hair, and she lay back on the bed, holding his mouth against her breast, where he suckled until her body arched upward. His hand cupped her through her jeans, his thumb seeking out the bud of her desire.

She groaned, a guttural sound of unbearable pleasure. “Miles, please,” she begged. For release. For satisfaction. For the chance to give back to him the joy he brought to her.

Her hands roamed his chest and shoulders and slid down his back, until the belt around his jeans stopped her journey. She quickly found the buckle and removed it, then resumed her journey of exploration.

Miles stripped Verity bare, the patience somehow dissipating the more of her flesh he touched, the more of it he saw, and then he stripped himself. He found the marks on her belly where the skin had stretched to accommodate his son and kissed them reverently, wishing he had possessed the right to hold her when their child was growing inside her.

He postponed the moment when they would be joined, not wanting the touching, the tasting, the tantalizing to end. He spread her golden halo of hair across his pillow. He lifted handfuls of it to his nose to smell the scent of it and pressed it against his cheeks to feel its silky texture.

“Tell me your secrets, Verity. Fill me full of you. Make me drunk with the scent of you.”

You know them all
, she started to say. Only there was a hope she had … a secret she could not be sure of yet … something wonderful if it was true … A new life was growing inside her.

Verity laughed, a bubbling sound that filled them both full of hope and happiness—however fleeting it might be.

Miles was lying beside her, his hands caressing her. She provocatively spread her legs and returned his invitation. “Come here, Miles. Fill me full of you. Make me drunk with the scent of you.”

He never took his eyes off her as he mounted her, pressing into her slowly.

Verity grasped his forearms, and her eyes slid closed as he pushed himself inside her to the hilt. “Oh, Miles,” she breathed on a sigh of exquisite pleasure. “How very good it feels to have you inside me.”

He captured her mouth with his and let his tongue stroke inside. She groaned and arched beneath him as his body mimicked his tongue.

Miles fought his body’s urge to reach the pinnacle of satisfaction he knew would mean the end of their lovemaking, while his hands, his mouth, his body worshiped her.

Finally, he gave in to the urge to spill his seed within her, his heart pounding, his breathing ragged, his body slick with sweat. A guttural sound, the savage groan of primitive man in the grip of animal passion, rose from his throat at the moment of climax.

It was sweet, oh, so sweet, to hear an answering
cry of satisfaction as her body tightened around him, shuddering in an ecstasy as she found a pinnacle of pleasure to equal his own.

“I’m heavy,” he said, starting to slide off her.

“No, please. Don’t move just yet.”

“Mother, I’m—” Rand stood paralyzed in the bedroom doorway.

Miles said something succinct as he grabbed for a sheet to cover Verity from Rand’s shocked gaze. “Don’t you know enough to knock on a closed door?” he said in a harsh voice.

“I d-didn’t expect—” Rand stuttered.

“Rand, we—” Verity began.

“I can see what’s going on, Mother,” Rand snapped.

Miles could see Verity was distraught. “Get out!” he snarled at Rand. “We’ll join you in a minute.”

Miles tried to pull Verity into his embrace, to comfort her, but she scurried away from him. “Verity—”

“Don’t say anything, Miles. Please.” She thrust a hand through her hair in agitation, shoving it away from her face, then reached for her long johns and began shoving her feet into them.

“We did nothing wrong.” Miles protested. “We’re married, for Christ’s sake! We—” He could not say they loved each other. But what they had done had felt very much like love, even if neither of them was willing to label it that. “Rand has to accept the fact that we’re married.”

“He was so shocked. The look on his face—”

Miles felt the heat on his neck. “Damn it, Verity! If he had knocked first, he wouldn’t have been embarrassed!”

She was already dressed. He was still standing there stark naked.

“You might want to put on some clothes and join us,” she snapped. “Obviously, something has happened that Rand thought was important enough to make him burst into the room without knocking.”

Miles had forgotten about that. He dragged his jeans on, buttoned them up and followed her, bare-footed and bare-chested, into the main room.

When Verity opened the bedroom door, she found Rand pacing restlessly in front of the fireplace. He stopped abruptly, flushed, and lowered his eyes.

Verity’s cheeks felt hot, and she knew her color was high. She opened her mouth to speak and couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“I’m sorry for barging in like that, Mother,” Rand said, still refusing to look at her. “I thought you might know where Miles was.”

An awkward pause ensued. She had known exactly where he was … naked in bed with her.

“You found me,” Miles said flatly. “What the hell was so important it couldn’t wait?”

Rand’s eyes narrowed, and a muscle jerked in his jaw. “I need your help, sir.”

“For what? Spit it out!”

“Freddy’s been kidnapped.”

“Goddamn
those troublemaking Sioux!” Miles spat.

“It wasn’t Hawk,” Rand said. “It was Tom.”