Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (21 page)

“Exactly.” And this was going to be the biggest chance of her life. She was afraid of being with a man. Cougar knew that. It was entirely possible he’d left her here because of that. She couldn’t blame him if he had, but that didn’t mean she was going to accept his decision without trying to show him that she could get past her fear.

Dorothy stepped back, drawing Mara’s attention, one hand holding her hair from her face, the other planted on her hip. “You take care on that drive. Keep that rifle by your side at all times. Anybody rides up to you, you shoot first and ask questions later.”

Mara was tempted to salute. She smiled instead. “Yes, Ma’am.”

The wind gusted again. Dorothy clutched her skirts. “Just remember, if it doesn’t work out, you’ve always got a home here with us.”

Mara clutched her courage. “Thank you.”

She slapped the reins gently on the obedient gelding’s rump and headed West.

* * * * *

The sign was too big to miss.

It sat in the middle of a huge meadow, standing at least fifteen feet high, and it proclaimed Cougar’s aspirations loud and clear. Mara halted the wagon beneath the huge sign. Looking straight up, she read the ornately carved words. Tumbling M. A Fool’s Dream.

She shook her head and wondered if it were a sign from above, because she couldn’t think of a more unlikely pair of dreamers than Cougar and herself. He for his determination to carve a future from this wilderness. She for her determination to carve happiness out of this marriage.

As she bounced up the rutted path, she rehearsed line after opening line to explain her presence. Cougar had said he wanted her, but she wasn’t sure he hadn’t changed his mind in the interim. If he did, however, she was going to jump on the nearest chair and slap him. It wasn’t every day she worked up the courage to do something risky and if he killed her first try, she would never forgive him.

The wagon hit a deep hole. The jolt reverberated up her spine. Her cheeks sucked in on a quick breath, and as the wagon rounded a bend, she forgot to let it out. Her eyes glued to the structure before her, Mara pulled slowly back on the reins. The roan obligingly stopped, his head swinging down to lazily snatch at patches of grass.

This was Cougar’s house? This, this…palace? She forced her slack jaw taut. She would not be intimidated by the size of Cougar’s house. So it wasn’t the comfy little cabin she’d been dreaming of. It was still Cougar’s home, and had no real bearing on her plans to fit into his life, but it was a lie and she knew it.

The huge, two-story log home had been built by a man who meant to leave a mark. Clearly, Cougar meant this to be a central gathering place for influential people. A place where important decisions would be made. The woman who graced this house would be expected to know all the social intricacies of well brought up society. She looked up at that great big house with all its expensive glass—glass!—windows and felt a burst of indecision. The woman who lived in this house would have to be perfect. She was a far cry from that. Which might explain why Cougar hadn’t come back for her. With her background, it was entirely possible that he was having second thoughts.

Mara untied her bonnet and chewed her lip. She looked at the house again, and one by one, squashed the fears nipping at her from all directions. Whatever Cougar had or had not planned for her decision to be, it was her decision and she had made it. She set the brake and looped the reins around the pole. She was Cougar McKinnely’s wife. She put her bonnet on the seat. They were both just going to have to deal with it.

She climbed down from the wagon. As her feet hit the ground, she straightened her spine.
I am a Kincaid. I can do this
. She headed for the porch steps and then paused as she realized no one here knew her. She was Cougar McKinnely’s wife, but a stranger. She glanced at the wide wraparound porch and the ornate wooden door dead center. They may not even let her in.

A totally cowardly impulse had her considering turning tail and running. Disgust at the impulse carried her up the four steps to the porch and had her rapping on the door. When no one came to answer her third knock, she lifted the latch, and stepped inside. Two steps into the room, she stopped dead.

This was worse than she’d imagined.

The house was, quite simply, the most breathtaking creation she had ever seen. The floor plan swept away from the entry in two open wings with a staircase bisecting them and gracefully sweeping up to the second floor balcony. Everywhere she turned, there was the golden glow of oak. To the right was a large dining area with two fieldstone fireplaces. To the left was what she supposed was the living area with additional fireplaces, but any space for sitting had to be carved out of piles and piles of wooden crates. Even that clutter couldn’t hide the elegance of the room.

Taking in the velvet curtains and elegant paintings on the walls, Mara became acutely aware of her tattered dress and dusty appearance. She shook her skirt out unobtrusively and caught sight of the floor. Any dust that tumbled from her clothing was indistinguishable from the heavy coating of dirt marring the golden beauty.

Her eyes narrowed at the outrage. At least now she knew why Dorothy always got so tight-lipped when she mentioned Cougar’s housekeeper. This place was a disgrace. Whatever Cougar was paying the woman, she decided as she spotted cobwebs hanging in a corner, it was too much.

“Hello. Is anybody home?”

There was no answer to her call, but as she moved deeper into the room, she thought she heard a noise from upstairs. She cocked her head and listened more closely. Yes, there it was again. Hopefully, that was the housekeeper and hopefully, she was hard at work.

Mara headed for the stairs. If not, she and the housekeeper were going to have words. Mara hated sloppy work and the laziness that created it. Clutching the banister tightly, she climbed the stairs. At the top, she followed the noise to the open door down the hall to the left, the bright red Oriental carpet under her feet muffling her footsteps.

There was no door to open. Nothing to block out the shock of what she was seeing. There was only unrelenting reality. That was her husband stretched out on the bed, his face a contortion of pain, but it wasn’t pain he was feeling. Mara was sure of that, because there was some black-haired hussy sprawled upside down across his torso dining on his manhood as if it were a feast. One she wasn’t about to relinquish, by the looks of things as she waved Mara away without even lifting her attention from her duties.

Pain, humiliation and shock struck Mara like blows. So fast, she couldn’t separate one from the other. Nausea welled. She pushed it back. She was Mara Kincaid, that was her husband, and she’d be damned if she’d run like a whipped cur. She stiffened her spine, gnawed her cheek until it bled, and stood her ground. At least her indecision was over. She would not share her husband with anyone. Not for anything.

As she debated her choices, she heard it. Her name whispered on a ragged moan. A guttural utterance of need, confusion, and…pain?

She looked closer. Nothing had changed. The hussy was still attached to her husband like a leech, but the hussy wasn’t who Mara was interested in. All she could see of Cougar was his shoulders and face above the woman’s big hips, but those parts didn’t look right. He was pale, very pale. That he was aroused, was prodigiously evident, but there was something about his face…

“Go away.”

Mara glanced at the woman crouched above her husband, her mouth inches from the glistening head of his manhood.

“Since the man you’re attached to is my husband, I believe that should be my line.”

“As you can see,” the woman proclaimed before pausing to leisurely lap Cougar’s manhood from base to tip, chuckling triumphantly when his hips arched off the bed in search of more of the caresses she withheld. “
El Patron
has no need of a flat as a board wife like you when Nidia is here.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

The woman nipped his manhood, absorbing his start with her lips. “I know who you are and where you come from.” The sneer in her voice bled into her expression. “He has no need of one such as you.”

Amazing that a woman doing what this woman was doing had the nerve to look down on her.

“Seeing as you aren’t his wife, your opinions don’t count for much.”

Beneath the woman, Cougar stirred. His head thrashed from side to side.

“Hush,
Patron
,” the woman soothed. “Nidia is here to take care of your needs. Just hush and let me ease you.”

Mara thought she was going to puke as the woman redoubled her efforts.

“If you would leave us,
Senora,
” the woman paused in her frantic bobbing to sneer the title. “I believe
El Patron
would like a taste of Nidia’s honey.”

If anyone needed a taste of something, it was Nidia. Mara reached through the slit in her skirt and fondled the handle of her knife. Cougar had yet to acknowledge her presence in the room. That rankled. He couldn’t help but see she was there. Not unless he was both blind and deaf.

Cougar tossed again, jostling the woman who lost her balance. What the move revealed had Mara’s hand tightening on the hilt of her knife. His side was a mess of blood-soaked bandages.

She was on Nidia in a heartbeat.

“You bitch!” She grabbed Nidia by the hair and flung her off the bed, surprising them both with her strength. Nidia sprang to her feet. She rushed Mara, her eyes slitted to narrow openings. Mara was more than ready for her. She simultaneously whipped out her knife and side-stepped Nidia’s headlong charge. As the other woman crashed onto the bed, Mara buried her knee in her back, grabbed her hair and hacked off every strand she could find. As she hacked a curl over Nidia’s ear, Mara lost her balance. Nidia took advantage and scrambled out from underneath her.

Cougar groaned on the bed. Panting and furious, Mara jerked the knife in the door’s direction. “Get out of my house.”

Nidia didn’t move or cower, though she did keep her eyes on the knife in Mara’s hand as she tossed the remains of her hair.

“I will leave only when
El Patron
tells me to.” Her hand slid over her full hip. “He brought me here for his pleasure. I’ll not leave until he tells me he no longer finds me pleasing.”

Mara immediately came up with a thousand ways to ensure Cougar never looked at this witch again, but when push came to shove, she knew she wasn’t any real threat. Men kept mistresses. It was a fact of life.

“Suit yourself,” she said coldly. “But if you stay, keep the hell out of my way and out of my sight or you won’t like the consequences.”

Nidia tossed her head again. “When the
patron
is better, he will call for me. I will be waiting.”

“If he’s alive tomorrow, you can take it up with him.”

Nidia hesitated, but then adopted that stance that challenged so well. “
El Patron
is very strong. It will take more than a bear to kill him.”

Hells bells, he’d been mauled by a bear? “Let’s hope your faith will carry the day. In the interim, get me some hot water. Boiling hot,” she added as Nidia balked.

“I do not take orders from you.”

“You do if you want this comfortable life to continue, because if he dies,” Mara snapped, approaching the bed, “I guarantee you’re out on your ear.”

Nidia left without another word. Hopefully, to return with hot water.

Cougar still lay as Nidia had left him. His manhood lay red and engorged against his stomach. Intimidating. Mara flicked a corner of the sheet over the threatening appendage. Pouring some cool water into the basin, she gathered up a cloth and started to soak the blood-caked mess of bandages off Cougar’s chest. The instant the cloth touched his skin, Cougar grabbed her wrist and forced her hand lower.

“Mara.” His voice was hoarse from fever and passion, but she heard the need. The plea. Startled, she looked up and realized his eyes were closed. There was no way he could know who touched him. Unless he had been dreaming about her all along. Mara ground her teeth as he pressed her hand against his erection. How dare Nidia take advantage of her memory this way! She shot a glare at the door, but any threat she thought to make died as Cougar snaked his free hand into her hair. The ease with which he dragged her up his body scared her silly.

He’d touched her before, but always with control. She pulled her hand free and braced it against his stomach. His dry, hot lips found hers, roughly prying them open for an exploration. She pushed away, but he held her where he wanted her with disheartening ease.

“Dammit,” he groaned as she pushed again. “Don’t tease me like this.”

“Let me go!” she demanded as his fingers coiled around her wrist.

Cougar’s eyes opened to slits. They glittered with a wildness that scared her.

“So this is how you want your revenge,” he ground out. “Well, it won’t wash, honey. If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned.”

It’s the fever, Mara told herself. The fever manipulated by Nidia that was making him different. He twisted, taking her with him, and down became up. The knowledge that he wasn’t himself didn’t help her nerves one bit when she was on her back, her wrists anchored in one of his huge hands above her head.