Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (17 page)

“The same way you wish women gave you the looks they give me when I pass by?”

“Hell no!” He kept his eyes on Brad, but let his fingers stroke the soft skin of Mara’s wrist. “Having women faint in horror when I pass isn’t my idea of fun.”

“Just goes to show you’ve been out in the territories too long when you mistake awe for horror.”

“Just goes to show why you came out to the territories.” Mara’s arm jerked on the fourth pass. He tightened his grip but stopped stroking.

“I needed the rest from all those adoring women.”

He put all the skepticism he could into his “Uh-huh. I’ll bet you needed a rest. But it would be from all those outraged daddies bent on revenge for curling the hair on their daughter’s heads.” Beneath his index finger, he felt Mara’s pulse jump. Did she think this was serious?

“Must be you misheard the rumors. It was their toes I curled, not their hair.”

He glanced at Mara’s face. The tension he could feel in her arm was clearly written in her expression. He glanced at Doc who was also watching Mara. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Doc cleared his throat. “Seeing as how we’re venturing into impolite territory, I’ll declare this round a draw.” He stood, crossed the room, and kissed Dorothy. “Would you like some help with the dishes?”

“I would love some.”

As soon as they left the room, breakfast plates in hand, Cougar tossed a taunt at Brad, but this time with a smile alongside. “Lucky break.”

He wasn’t surprised when the other man picked it up and tossed it right back with one of his own. “Lucky for you, you mean.”

Cougar was about to rebut when Mara interrupted.

“You two are friends.” She sounded surprised by the fact.

“You could say that,” Brad agreed.

“He has his moments,” Cougar offered grudgingly.

She huffed in response.

Cougar sipped his coffee, winced at its coldness, and then patted Mara consolingly on her knee. “Next time, you’ll pick your allies better.”

She pulled herself up with the dignity of a queen. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Sure you do.” He grinned at her. “You meant to use Brad against me. A good strategy, but one you shouldn’t use unless you’re sure of his allegiance.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Which is to you?”

“It’s only fair. I saw him first.” Feeling good, tempted by the way her gesture drew her gown tight across her nipples, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Her hastily expelled breath rushed by his cheek as he pulled back.

“The Reverend,” she reminded him.

He touched the place where his lips had been. “That, Angel, was a consolation prize, and in no way could be misconstrued as anything else.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t look ready to bolt either. He took that as a positive sign as he grabbed his makings off the bedstead.

“I hate to put an end to things, but I’ve got to be heading out,” Brad interrupted.

“Baptism?” Cougar asked, shaking some tobacco onto a paper, while watching the way Mara’s fingers replaced his over the spot he’d kissed.

Brad sighed, and shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. Old man Dillon passed on yesterday.”

“Damn. I liked the old coot.” He wet the paper, rolled the cigarette up tight, and twisted the ends.

“Just about everyone did. Ought to be quite a turnout for his funeral.”

He put the cigarette between his lips, and as he struck the sulfur, asked, “You’ll pass on my regrets and sympathy?”

Brad nodded, got up, and shook Cougar’s hand. “Mabel will understand.” He turned to Mara. “It was nice meeting you. I wish you the best in your marriage, and remember, if you get tired of this galoot, I’m around.”

“Thank you.”

She sounded entirely too relieved for Cougar’s peace of mind. “She won’t be tiring of anything.”

He knew Brad wouldn’t let the challenge pass. He took a drag, let the smoke soothe his rough edges and waited out the response.

“So you say but we all know your inflated opinion of your prowess.”

“This from a man of God?” Smoke drifted with his question. “I could be grass-green and still have more to boast about than you.”

Brad laughed, slapped him on the back, damned near knocking his smoke from his lips, and headed for the door. His hand was on the knob before he made his parting shot, “Unlike the Catholics, celibacy isn’t a vow I’m forced to make.”

“More’s the pity,” Cougar muttered as the door closed behind him. He took another drag, and turning, saw his wife sitting up in bed, blushing prettily. It took him a minute to figure out the source of that blush.

They were in a bedroom. She was his wife, and this was their wedding day. To make things even better, as Doc and Dorothy would be attending Dillon’s funeral, they were alone with the whole day stretching before them—a big void crying out to be filled. He smiled around his cigarette. He could probably come up with a few things to do.

* * * * *

If anyone had told Mara she’d be spending her wedding day playing chess, she would have laughed in their face. She’d had plans for her wedding, big plans all of which involved a formal ceremony, a formal dress, and formal party afterwards. Everyone would be dressed up in their best clothes, properly polite and the closest she would have come to frivolity would have been tossing her bouquet. She would not have had nearly the fun she’d had today.

Who knew chess could be such an amusing battle of wits as well as intelligence? She hesitated, her fingers brushing the smooth wooden head of the exquisitely carved knight. Certainly not her.

“You could always move your queen to the left,” Cougar offered the suggestion with the same helpful attitude with which he’d offered about twenty others.

“I can’t believe you’d suggest anything so unscrupulous!” Mara exclaimed, pretending an outrage she didn’t actually feel.

“Hey,” Cougar threw up his hands in self-defense, looking as innocent as a lamb. “It was just a suggestion.”

He wasn’t fooling her for a minute. “Some suggestion. If I move my queen there, you’ll have my king in check.”

“I fail to see anything wrong with that.”

She glared at him, trying to keep her lips from twitching. “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Maybe because I’m trying to win this game?”

She couldn’t help it. She laughed out loud. The man was outrageous, pulling honesty out of thin air, just when it was guaranteed to tickle her funny bone.

“That could be it.” She took his knight with her queen. “There. That ought to fix you,” she said with a great deal of satisfaction. In three moves, she’d have him in checkmate.

“It does,” he mourned. “It surely does.”

His bishop flew across the board and wiped out her queen. “Check.”

“Oh rats.” She sat back against the pillows and surveyed the wreckage that had once been a carefully laid out attack. There had to be a way out of this. She caught her lip between her teeth as she worked on her options.

Cougar’s finger coaxed her lip free. She’d long since given up jumping every time he touched her, just as she’d given up protesting. The man had been touching her pretty much incessantly for the last seven hours. Light, non-threatening, addictive touches that seemed as natural to him as laughing. Which had been another fragment of his personality she’d had to get used to. For such a dangerous looking man, with such a dangerous reputation, he was surprisingly fond of laughing.

She glared at him, seeing the sympathy in his eyes. “Don’t say it,” she warned.

“Say what?” The slight deepening of the crease beside his mouth alerted her to the smile he was suppressing.

“Whatever it is you’re itching to say.”

“Has anyone ever pointed out to you you’re a poor loser?” he asked, cocking his head at her, the move causing his thick black hair to slide over his shoulder, throwing his high cheekbones and golden eyes into sharp relief.

Not for the first time, it struck her what an exotically handsome man Cougar was. She realized she was on the verge of staring and quickly replied, “No.”

Curiosity replaced the sympathy in his eyes as he flicked the hair back. “Because you never lose?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t take offense, Angel, but your opponents must have been limited in their…”

“Intellect?” she supplied with a smile.

He shrugged. “In two moves, you’ll be in checkmate. And I think I was leaning toward the term, ‘ability’.”

“Well, I only had one person to play with, so maybe I just got used to the way the game always went.”

She moved her knight to block the check. Cougar took it with his rook.

“Who taught you to play?”

“I learned from a book.” She moved her king, hoping to delay the inevitable.

Cougar paused, his hand hovering over his knight. “You taught yourself to play chess?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s just a matter of learning the rules.” She waved him on. “Who taught you?”

“Doc. And a damned wily player he is too, so don’t get snookered into a game with him until you get more experience under your belt.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

He placed his knight where he wanted it. “Checkmate.”

She sighed, and studied the board. “Apparently so.”

“Don’t look so discouraged.”

He stroked the curve of her cheek with his finger. She missed the warmth of his touch when he took his hand away. “As soon as you learn to pay a little more attention to your defense, we’ll be evenly matched.”

Her sigh escaped before she could catch it. “So you keep telling me.”

“You are an impulsive little thing.” He sounded very happy with the lack in her personality. She stared at him a good minute before she remembered what was making him so happy. “Oh darn.”

“Uh-huh.” His smile was pure anticipation and full of carnal intent. “It’s time to pay up.”

“You’re not really going to hold me to that bet, are you?”

“To the letter,” he said, removing the chessboard from between them. “As I recall, it was double or nothing, last count.”

“But I didn’t mean it!”

“Angel.” He shook his head reprovingly. “We shook on it.”

“Only because you got me so mad, spouting all that nonsense about women being naturally less intelligent than men!”

He placed the chess set on the plank floor and cocked an eyebrow at her. “And who’s the one on the losing end of a bet she wished she hadn’t made?”

“I made that bet, as you darn well know, because I was sure I wouldn’t lose.” She straightened the sheet over her legs.

He smiled a wolfish smile that sent chills up her spine. “But you did lose and I am not about to let you welsh.”

There seemed so much of him, leaning over her so quickly, she instinctively shrank back into the pillows propped behind her back.

“You, Mrs. McKinnely, owe me ten kisses.”

Her response to that aura of power he emitted, annoyed her. She crossed her arms over her chest and put some steel into her spine. “I would rather have you do ten days of dishwashing.”

“That’s what comes of overconfidence.” He brushed his lips across her forehead.

“That’s one,” she hastened to point out. She felt his smile against her hair.

“So it is.” He kissed the end of her nose. “And that’s two.”

Her fists clenched at her side. The eight more to go loomed ominously in her mind. What if he went mad with lust before he collected all of the debt? Try as she might to stay calm, she couldn’t control the shakiness of her breathing. He was so big and he could hurt her so much with so little effort. She closed her eyes and fought panic.

His third kiss landed on the back of her right hand. His fourth on the curve of her cheek. He pried open her fist to place the fifth in the hollow of her hand.

“That’s five. Are you keeping count?” he asked, amusement lurking in his voice.

Her whispered “Yes,” sounded smothered to her own ears. Lord knows what he made of it.

“Good.” She felt his lips brush feather light across her left eyelid. “Count for me,” he whispered.

She swallowed and managed a six. Another whisper of sensation, this time across her right eye. “Seven.”

His finger skimmed her cheek and she jumped. “Steady,” he coaxed as he snagged her chin in the curve of his thumb. His lips, warm and firm, touched hers. “Eight,” she mumbled, doing her best not to increase the contact.

His laughter puffed against her mouth. He seemed to have none of her reluctance about touching as he pointed out, “It doesn’t count until I take my lips away.”

It felt strange, his mouth moving on hers as he spoke. Not unpleasant, not threatening, just strange.

“Oh.”

He didn’t say anything more, just pressed his lips to hers. Occasionally, he would move them differently, but mostly, he just left them connected to hers. She supposed she should feel threatened, but mostly, she just felt bored. “Are you done yet?”