Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (25 page)

“I cut off her hair.”

“Well hell.” Two words that told her nothing about how he felt about that, or about how he felt about Nidia. Herself. Their situation. Did he think she was a woman who shared?

“If you still want her, she’s still beautiful.”

Cougar cupped Mara’s face in his palm. He looked straight into her eyes and his tone left no doubt that he meant what he said.

“I don’t want her,” he declared firmly. “I told her to leave months ago. The only reason she’s still here is because I couldn’t spare the time to kick her out.”

Looking at Cougar as he loomed over her, the bright sunlight glinting off his copper skin, the well-honed muscles of his arm bulging as he supported himself above her, he was totally and completely male. An exotically handsome man any woman would fight for. She knew exactly why Nidia was still here.

“I made my choice months ago,” he clarified in the wake of her silence.

Meaning her, but she didn’t know why, couldn’t understand why someone like him would look twice at someone like her. But deep down, beneath the rational understanding that he was just talking to put her at ease, part of her exulted at the thought of being desired above someone else.

“You don’t have to say things like that.”

“Like what?”

She turned her head away from his frown. She didn’t want to see the lie when politeness forced him to speak it. “I’m not naïve.”

“Glad to hear it.” His hand slid up over her ribs. It might have been her imagination, but it seemed to linger on her left nipple, rubbing it lightly before sliding across her throat and curving around her neck. His thumb forced her chin back, but it was his words that had her eyes flying to his.

“I don’t want another woman.”

Mara blinked, opened her mouth and then snapped it shut.

“Are we square on that?” Cougar asked, his thumb pressing against her lower lip. He seemed fascinated with watching the way her lip responded to his manipulation.

“Quite square,” she whispered as his taste infiltrated her mouth. Warm and salty.

“Good.” He released his hold on her. She watched as he carefully eased down on the bed beside her. Even flat on his back, he was imposing.

“I need to get you some broth,” she sighed on a yawn, “and I should check your wounds to make sure you didn’t reopen them with all your tossing about. I won’t even mention the mountain of laundry piled up downstairs.”

“By all means,” Cougar agreed, pulling her against him, settling her cheek on his shoulder. “Let’s not mention it.”

Her cheek fit his shoulder as if it was made to be there. Beneath her ear, she could hear his heartbeat. Steady and strong, just like the rest of him.

“As to the rest,” he said, pulling her arm over his stomach and then tugging her thigh over his, “my wounds are fine and I’m not the least bit hungry. All I want to do is sleep.”

She wanted to argue with him, but he was sliding his hand up her thigh under her skirt. His fingers brushed her knife sheath. He chuckled, dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and untied the bottom ties. He was slower on the upper ones, brushing the fleshy skin on the inside of her thigh over and over until she wanted to jerk into his touch. By the time the ties gave, she was gritting her teeth against a moan. A quick glance at Cougar’s face showed he was aware of her tension. His smile was that wickedly dark one that made her pulse pound and her blush rise.

He let the ties remain where they lay, dangling against her leg, tickling her flesh. His fingers pinched the resilient muscle of her inner thigh. Her breath caught in her throat as he held her suspended on the edge of anticipation.

“When I’m feeling better, I’m going to put my mouth here.”

She blinked, weighing the notion.

“I’ll leave a mark.”

Her body did not react like it was a threat. Every tired, exhausted nerve ending immediately imagined the feel of his mouth sucking on her sensitive flesh. Moisture gushed between her thighs. She closed her eyes. She was pathetic.

His chuckle was very masculine. Very satisfied. He pulled the sheath from her thigh. “But for now, I’ll just settle for some sleep.”

The knife and sheath landed on the bedside table with a soft thunk. His big hand curved around her hip. Within minutes, his breathing was deep and even.

When she was sure he was asleep, Mara studied his face, looking for answers, clues to what made him tick. She didn’t find any. She sighed, closed her eyes. She was going to have to keep her wits about her if she was going to survive this marriage.

Chapter Twelve

Three days later, Cougar and Clint watched in aggrieved silence as Mara grabbed the doorknob and slammed out of the room. At the last possible second, she twitched the skirt of Dorothy’s borrowed dress out of harm’s way. The resounding crash of wood violently meeting wood shook the house. A small vase Cougar used as an ashtray teetered off the desk.

Clint collapsed into the chair beside Cougar’s bed, a smile tugging at his lips. “Thought she’d get her skirt there for a minute.”

Cougar shook his head in wry amusement. “I’m discovering my wife has a positive flair for courting the edge of disaster.”

“Not quite the grateful, biddable wife you thought you were getting?”

“Not quite.”

“You don’t sound too upset.”

“Probably because I’m not.”

Cougar eyed Clint. “I know why she’s mad at me, but what did you do to get on her bad side?”

Clint lounged in the chair, his injured leg stretched out before him, his crutches propped up against the side of the wing back chair. “I rode a horse,” he drawled lazily.

Reaching into his shirt pocket, he pulled out his papers and tobacco pouch. With a lift of his eyebrow, he indicated the cigarette fixings.

Cougar frowned in response. “No, thank you. And you’re not going to have one either.”

Clint’s left brow matched the right’s elevated position. “Since when?”

“Since Mara found an etiquette book in the library.”

“I’m not following.”

“No one but a woman could.”

Clint patiently waited him out.

“Apparently, it’s not proper for men to smoke in the house with the exception of having one with an after-dinner brandy,” Cougar clarified. It sounded even more stupid when he said it.

“You don’t drink brandy,” Clint pointed out.

“No shit.”

“So because you don’t drink brandy, you can’t smoke?”

“Pretty much.”

Clint pulled out a paper. “You ever consider just laying down the law?”

“Yeah.”

Clint sprinkled tobacco on the paper and rolled it tight. “And?”

“You ever see a woman cry without shedding a tear?” Cougar asked.

Clint paused mid-lick on the edge of the paper. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, don’t be passing judgment until you do.”

Clint finished wetting the paper’s edge. As he sealed it, he asked, “Still don’t see why that means I can’t have a smoke.”

Cougar snatched the cigarette out of Clint’s hand. “I’m not spending another meal choking down clear broth because she catches a whiff of smoke the next time she marches in here.”

Clint choked on his laughter as he tucked his makings back into his pocket. “Is that how she’s keeping you in line?”

Cougar shot a murderous glare at the closed door. “Not that she’s owning up to,” he grumbled. “But one meal, after enduring endless rounds of watered-down broth…”

“It’s only been two days.”

“And then,” Cougar continued as if no interruption had occurred. “I get the most mouthwatering platter of roast beef and mashed potatoes.” At the memory, saliva filled Cougar’s mouth. One look at Clint’s face stated emphatically that he was sharing the same, beautiful memory.

“Mara sure can cook,” he sighed blissfully.

“Yeah,” Cougar agreed. “Well, one lousy cigarette later, and I’m back to tasteless broth and dry bread.”

“If I were you,” Clint advised solemnly. “I’d bury every bit of tobacco on the place in a deep, dark hole.”

Cougar glared at the bulge in the pocket of Clint’s well-worn red shirt. “Starting with yours.”

“Want one that badly, huh?”

Cougar ran his hand over his face as if to wipe away the urge. “Yeah.”

Clint smiled at his cousin’s dilemma. “Look at it this way. At least Mara didn’t take it into her head that coffee wasn’t good for an invalid.”

In response, Cougar passed the cup on the bed stand to Clint. One look was all it took.

“Couldn’t grow hair on the backside of Two-Shot Hank,” Clint observed morosely, naming a man famous for the abundance of hair gracing his body. “Who’d have thought that someone who could cook like those fancy chefs in San Francisco would make coffee so weak, tea would be ashamed to call it kin?”

Cougar grunted and placed the cup on the floor by the bed. For a moment, the two men eyed each other in sympathetic communion.

“So smoking is responsible for Mara storming around here like a thunderstorm at full tilt?” Clint observed.

“That’s one reason,” Cougar admitted, “but it’s not the reason she just slammed out of here.”

Clint stopped twirling his hat and dropped it on his knee. His bent head hid his knowing smile. “Oh.”

Cougar adjusted the pillow behind his back. “I just informed Mrs. High and Mighty that I was officially vacating the sickbed tomorrow.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“The woman’s trying to make an invalid of me.”

“I can see where she’s overreacting,” Clint agreed magnanimously. “After all, she nearly killed herself keeping you alive.” He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t see why she feels two days isn’t long enough to recover from being mauled by a bear and a fever that’s already killed three people.”

“Don’t start.” Cougar shot his cousin a glare. If anyone could give Doc a run for his money in the meddling department, it was Clint. Beneath all that molasses-thick, lazy get-to-it-in-my-own-time attitude, lurked a stubborn bulldog of a temperament. “It’s my body, and I damned well know when I’m ready to put it to use. Hell, I’m only talking about getting out of bed, not riding herd.”

“You’re saving that for the day after, I gather.”

“Sometimes,” Cougar grumbled, “having you for a cousin is worse than having a second conscience.”

“Just don’t want to see all your wife’s good work undone.” The smile disappeared from Clint’s black eyes, leaving them dark and serious. “It was touch and go there for a while, cousin, with nothing standing between you and your maker but that tiny bit of female determination.”

“So I gather.”

“I hope you had the good sense to drop to your knees and kiss her feet when you woke up.”

Clint was back to twirling his hat laconically around his finger, Cougar noticed. A sure sign he was thinking on something. Or plotting. For all his lazy appearance, a close observer would note that Clint was never still. He accomplished more at a walk than most accomplished at a run.

“Actually,” Cougar admitted, “the very first thing I did was to accuse her of taking up with the Reverend.”

Clint whistled long and low through his teeth. The hat looped awkwardly around his finger as he forgot to keep the rhythm. “I’m surprised she didn’t send the room up in flames with her anger. She’s a feisty little thing for all she looks like a porcelain angel. Took a pitchfork to me at our first meeting.”

“Ah, yes. The infamous pitchfork incident. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Just what in hell did you do to spark such a reaction?”

Clint chuckled. The tan Stetson with its snakeskin band resumed its slow, steady whirl. “I told you. I rode a horse.”

“And how did riding a horse cause Mara to go reaching for the nearest pitchfork?”

Clint smoothed a crease from the brim of his hat. “The pitchfork actually came first.”

“Am I going to have to pull teeth to get the story out of you?” Cougar asked with no real rancor. Sooner or later, Clint would get to the point.

Clint lifted his head, revealing his admiration. “You should have seen her, cous. She came flying into the barn, rapping out orders to beat the band. Looked ready to gut me for not having gone to get Doc sooner.”

Clint’s gaze when it met Cougar’s was filled with the contradictory emotions of apology and fury. “You ought to whip that bitch Nidia.”

“No point. She’d probably enjoy it. Go on with your story.”

Clint shrugged. “There isn’t much left to tell. She finally stopped jabbing that pitchfork at my gut and calling me every foul name in the book right about the time she realized I didn’t know you were up at the house dying. That’s when she started rapping out orders.” Clint slanted Cougar a dark look. “You really should talk to her about defending herself. She got way too close, too fast. I was able to snatch it right out of her hands. It might not have been much in the way of protection, but it was all she had.”

“She carries a wicked blade strapped to her thigh.”