“What’dya think? Lawrence hasn’t forgotten Thune killin’ Samuel and Zeke. We’ve been one step behind you all this way since we ran into you in Kansas City.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Jace murmured, letting everything slide down to spill on the sidewalk in an untidy mess, because he really needed his hands free, “but you have it all wrong, as usual. Samuel killed Zeke. Cole just gunned him down when Samuel drew on him.”
“So he says.”
Jace shrugged. “He doesn’t lie.”
“He’s a damned Injun.”
“You got a point here, Frank, or are we squaring off? I’m game, by the way.”
“I could.”
“Then why are you waiting?” Jace turned slightly for the best advantage. He’d done this before—sleepy town, dusty street, an opponent who wouldn’t look him in the eye. He’d done it before with Frank.
This wasn’t the first time they’d been in this situation; where the other man was thinking about drawing and thinking about it hard. Jace should have killed him back in Kansas City then he wouldn’t have to do it here, drawing attention to them, the wagons full of supplies, maybe bringing trouble back to the ranch.
Saxon let his hand rest on his hip—he’d lose if he tried to draw that way. Jace knew he’d lose anyway—and then, in the end, Frank shook his head, spat on the sidewalk, narrowly missing the supplies, and turned away.
Jace couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or just disgusted. “Yellowbelly,” he muttered and started to pick up the packages. “I didn’t expect more, but then again, I hoped for at least a real fight.”
Robert bent and handed the supplies up to him. “The cowards are the dangerous ones. Watch my back. I wouldn’t turn it on Frank if you aren’t paying attention.”
“Oh, I’m watchin’ him.” Jace moodily contemplated the retreating man. “Trouble is, he knows I have scruples. That’s the damn last thing any man should have out heah in this country.”
“Frank wouldn’t even recognize the word.” Robert hefted a roll of wire on his shoulder. “Let’s move along. The Saxons have followed us—followed Cole—and I never doubted it would happen, but the stakes are higher now. There’s going to be a fight, Jace, let’s face it. But at least we know they’re here.”
The stakes were higher. Victoria was now in danger. Jace could have sworn he didn’t have a nerve in his body, but he suddenly felt slightly sick. “She didn’t want it, but I bought her one of those dresses. It’s blue, like her eyes, and looked about her size, and I know she can’t sew… So I did it anyway…Jesus.”
No need to point out that in a town the size of Rio Verde the purchase wouldn’t go without remark, and he couldn’t take it back now. Frank and Lawrence would understand there was a woman living with them. It was a mistake, but it was made, and they needed to move along. Victoria was a complication that could become combustible.
Robert said grimly, “The faster we finish loading the wagons and get out of here, the better.”
The stars were perfect, clear and glittering in a night sky as vast as the prairie, as high as the mountains, as deep as the ocean… At that point Victoria ran out of poetic descriptions as she took a deep breath of the cool crisp air and slowly released it. “I like it here,” she said spontaneously. “No. I
love
it here.”
As if in answer, a lonely howl came from somewhere behind the tree line and Cole laughed softly. “I think
el lobo
heard you, but he doesn’t agree. He sounds hungry. I doubt he’s alone either. Have I ever described to you how a pack of wolves relay a deer, taking turns chasing it until their prey tires? It’s like watching a ballet, orchestrated and rehearsed, their timing perfect. The intention is deadly but beautiful to watch in a way, even when they go in for the kill. Survival at its finest, if you ask me. They cull the weak and the old, and when you think about it, the deer are better off. Only the strong ones breed.”
“That’s what Jace told me.”
“He was right.”
There was a moment when the fire just crackled.
“Have you ever been to the ballet?” He was reticent enough about his past, she’d wondered.
“Yes.”
The shuttered look on his face precluded delving any deeper, and all things considered, she found that one of the freedoms she now enjoyed was that the past didn’t matter. He was well-educated obviously, and both he and Robert came from good families, but none of that was relevant to their current circumstances.
“Oh yeah, he’s hungry all right,” he murmured as the wolf howled again, “maybe he’s caught our scent. Maybe you’d better stay close to me.”
The isolated valley echoed the melancholy sound, but she knew him well enough now that she understood when Cole was teasing her.
“No doubt he has,” she said with what she hoped was utter serenity. “But such intelligent animals surely rarely hunt something bigger that possesses weapons and fire, so I am going to guess our wolf out there, hungry or not, won’t decide we are the appropriate target for his evening meal.”
She didn’t miss the hint of a hovering smile as he ducked his head and poked at the fire with a long stick. Behind him, the aspens waved in a graceful sway, the leaves whispering in a hushed hum. “Maybe so,” he drawled slowly. “Jace talks too much.”
They were in a small ring of trees, the hollow sheltered but not far off the range where they’d been searching out cattle all day. She’d taken some measure of satisfaction thinking about how horrified the stuffy matrons back in London would be if they saw her astride a horse, nudging calves into line, though she was a novice at best, and if it wasn’t for her trained mount, she would have been hopeless in her quest to help.
But today was the first time she’d felt actually useful and she had to admit she reveled in it. She wasn’t good at herding cattle, but she
could
ride, and though she couldn’t bake a biscuit that didn’t taste like a cow patty—a term she’d heard Jace use—she could be useful.
“Are you pleased with the amount of cows we found?” She set aside her tin plate, reaching for her coffee, kept in place by her knees.
“Cattle,” he corrected, his fine mouth quirking in open amusement. “More than I thought.” Cole watched her across the fire, his predatory gaze not a mystery. “I’m pleased.”
The day by the river, she’d invited. Tonight, she had a feeling he was going to take the offensive. Holding her own with a man like Cole Thune wasn’t going to be easy, but then again, there were no rules here—not when she knew absolutely that there wasn’t another person for miles and miles, and even if there had been, Cole was unlikely to care one way or another.
Luckily, she didn’t care either. She was as safe as she could be in this wild place, even if he was looking at her like that hungry wolf somewhere in the darkness. A palpable tension hung between them suddenly, though he’d been nothing but solicitous all day, and his manner diffident and detached as he’d efficiently managed both the task of finding the stray herd and keeping an eye on her. She had no illusions he could have accomplished twice as much had he not had to be so vigilant in his guardianship, but she’d done her best to obey his instructions.
It was a bit amusing, but she was beginning to realize that cowboys separated work and play in a very efficient fashion. The day was quite over. At the moment, she undoubtedly still needed protection, but
he
was the source of danger.
A rather delicious danger, at that.
One sinewy hand tossed another hunk of wood on the fire and the flames cracked up. He said with deceptive casualness, “I only brought one bedroll. We’ll have to share.”
“That’s not exactly a subtle ploy, Mr. Thune.” Victoria didn’t even bother to hide the laughter in her voice.
“Do you object, Lady Victoria?” His dark eyes were direct, but his voice lowered into a telling husky tone.
A small thrill went through her, tumultuous and unruly. The wild setting maybe didn’t help, but she didn’t object at all. Slowly she shook her head.
“Then come here.”
Maybe if she’d wanted to, she could have refused. Maybe. When Cole gave orders it wasn’t in a tone that offered flexibility. But she didn’t wish to refuse him, to deny either of them what she knew was about to happen. She stood, the slight soreness in her thighs and bottom reminding her she hadn’t ridden in a week but had been on a horse all day. The flickering firelight threw shadows against his face, giving a gleam to his sleek, dark hair, making the circles of trees in their private glen a shadowy background.
He deftly shook out the roll of blankets, the clear sky above vivid with stars, negating the need for more shelter because it was unlikely to rain, and he sat down to unlace his leggings, his gaze intent as she circled the fire and approached.
“Your hair,” he ordered, but it wasn’t autocratic as much as a hoarse request, and Victoria obediently undid the thong securing her long braid and ran her fingers through the loosened strands, the breeze whispering past.
He stood again, and his hands went to her shoulders, their eyes meeting before he tugged her closer, the movement temperate for a man who usually was decisive and impatient, his head lowering before he kissed her gently.
It wasn’t exactly what she expected. She wasn’t a virgin any longer, he’d seen to that on the trail, and she knew he desired her not just from the tension in his tall body but the way he’d been looking at her all evening. Yet his mouth feathered against hers at first, their lips clinging sweetly, and his hands drifted over her back in a light touch before settling at her waist. Cole murmured against her mouth, “I want this to be slow.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but as he held her close, the unmistakable state of his aroused body hardly supported his declaration. “We are very alone,” she whispered back, tasting the slight tang of the whiskey he’d drunk after their dinner.
“Exactly. No need to hurry, no rush.” His lashes drifted downward as he claimed her mouth again in a sensuous kiss, and his hands moved to her breasts, cupping them briefly through the fabric of her shirt before going to the buttons. Then cool air brushed her skin, her blouse was tossed aside and he let out a small groan as he brushed his fingertips across one taut nipple.
Victoria arched, she quivered, and when he bent his head, a small sound escaped that she simply could not help as he suckled her breast.
It all blended. The wildness of their surroundings, the silk of his hair brushing her skin, the sound of the wolf again in the distance… It was fragmented and yet part of the same picture, this new life she was forming, and the men who were helping her find that inner being that had been so shaped and defined by centuries of protocol and repression.
At the moment, all she cared about was that Cole was touching her, tasting her, and that the stars above were as brilliant as the crown jewels.
He’d sworn to himself he could behave for at least one night and not take her.
Unless, of course, she wanted it, invited him again, but Cole’s resolve to wait and see if she would had crumbled about the time they’d made camp.
She had the most luscious breasts, he decided, as he stripped her clothes away, drawing hard on one pink, ripe nipple with his mouth. Victoria’s pale skin was a contrast to his long fingers as he stroked the full mound of flesh cupped in his hand. Not much more than what could fill his palm, but he had decent-sized hands, and she was slender everywhere else, so the contrast was entirely feminine and absolutely perfect.
He couldn’t wait to be inside her again, to watch her face as he made love to her, to touch, taste and caress every silken inch of skin as he brought her the ultimate pleasure.
And this time he wasn’t just playing, just dabbling in love with loose ladies who had as little interest as he did in the future, but he was in earnest, and when Victoria moved underneath him restlessly as he hastily unbuttoned his shirt, he fought the urge to tell her the truth.
This was the most he’d ever connected with a woman. He was afraid it was
too
much, and damn it to hell if he wasn’t starting to feel like a human being again on top of it all.
Pale hair spilled over his arm as he bent her backwards, and he nuzzled the underside of her breast, then had the presence of mind to at least think about her comfort, and shifted her in his arms. “I want you.”
An understatement, a small voice inside admonished. He was rock hard, aching, and he needed to ignore that exacerbating need and ensure her pleasure first. His hand slid over her thigh as he lowered her to the blankets. “Now.”
What he really wanted was to have her—this instant. To touch and hold, to hear the cadence of her breathing as he brought her to climax, to feel the bite of her nails, to experience the exquisite moment her inner muscles tightened around his cock as she came…
Part of it was the stars, the wind, the darkness, the solitude. He had an idea of what ownership meant in regular society, but it was not an issue between the four of them and he knew—
knew
—Robert and Jace agreed with him.
Warm, wet heat met his fingers as he slipped his hand between her thighs, and the answering catch in her breath made him smile as his fingers slid deep. He pressed her back against the blankets and her yielding body welcomed him in a way he recognized.
Cole knew all about how to please a willing lady. He’d been about fifteen when one of the housemaids decided to give him an education in how it all worked between men and women. He might have mixed blood, but females liked his looks, and he’d never lacked for company in bed if he wanted it.
But he was still learning about how to be a lover. The nuances were different, and each touch, each kiss, was so full of meaning. Pleasure was not just a fleeting means to satisfy his body.
He needed to satisfy his heart as well.
Considering that, he had a different perspective on what was about to happen. He unfastened his pants, shucked them off and lay next to her, propped on one elbow, his hand running the length of her lissome body. Her pale hair tumbled against the dark blankets in a luxurious spill of satiny strands, her eyes dark and wide, and with each breath her bare breasts quivered.