Sobering, that was. Whore, or simply a woman who was extremely lucky?
As she carefully stacked the plates, stoked the fire so the water would heat, and performed a task her family back in England would consider below anyone but a scullery maid, she had to ask herself how much of life was chance? Chance of birth, chance of circumstance, even chance of wily fate…
An earl’s daughter, at the moment washing dishes for three men who were clearly not on the right side of the law?
On the other side of the coin, she was the daughter of a wastrel who despite his aristocratic background had ruined not only his own life, but that of his child, and left her adrift in a world that did not forgive those that fell from grace, even if one was just associated with the culprit.
All in all, she decided as she poured steaming water into the wash basin, she preferred Cole, Robert and Jace, none of whom apologized for their past, and who actually cared about her.
And they did. She knew they did, and it wasn’t just desire. That notion, in a life that had included a great deal of disappointment and disillusionment from men, was difficult for her to imagine, but she did realize it.
Robert took a soapy plate from her hand, his smile warm. “I missed the way you move. Graceful. Like a deer in a meadow on a summer morning.”
“More like a hawk hovering on an afternoon breeze over the West Texas plains.” Jace walked up behind her. “Beautiful with no effort at all.”
When his arms slid around her, she took in a breath and it caught in her throat as his mouth teased the nape of her neck. “I missed you too,” he murmured into her hair.
And wanted her. It wasn’t hard to discern that even through his clothing, and when she turned in his arms, he kissed her again, more fully, hungry and hard—literally.
Impetuous…well, of course, it was Jace, and he was always impetuous even with Robert standing there, and yet she couldn’t help but kiss him back, her eyes stinging with tears. It had not struck her how anxious she’d been about both of them until she and Cole had seen the first plume of dust drift up, signaling that someone was approaching the ranch.
“Come with me?” Jace made it a question, not a demand, and lean fingers laced through hers. “I’m damn near half-daid from thinkin’ about you.”
On the contrary. He looked very much alive with his quicksilver smile and those audacious blue eyes, but there was a lingering poignancy in his tone and of the three of them, he had been the one from the beginning to swear he loved her. The heat from his body was like a combustible fire. He’d bathed after the long, hot ride, and the clean scent of simple soap drifted from his skin. His jaw was clean shaven, his blond hair tousled and damp.
He tucked a stray curl of her hair behind her ear, his calloused fingers gentle. “Robert and I couldn’t help it, we bought you a dress. Not as pretty as what you must have had back home, but blue like your eyes. Still, I’m not denyin’ I’d rather see you in nothing at all right now.”
Dusk had settled in, and his hands ran lightly down her sides persuasively. Victoria couldn’t help but notice that Robert had left the room, the door closing softly.
“I missed you too,” she said quietly. “If something happened to you or Robert, I would never have—”
“Nothing happened.” Jace jerked her closer, his eyes like blue flame. “We both stayed sober and away from the saloons. We wouldn’t…I mean, neither of us would think of taking a chance, not with this, not with you to come back to. I don’t know if you understand what that means in a cowboy’s life. Most of us don’t count for much. If we were gone tomorrow, someone might dig us a grave, and then maybe not. I’d trust Cole and Robert with my life—I’ve done it before and will again, and they’ve done the same for me, so that takes care of dyin’, but I’m not sure in my adult life I’ve ever really had anything to live for before.”
She wasn’t sure what she would have said if he’d waited, but this was Jace, and so naturally he didn’t. Just swooped her up in his arms. In less than a minute he’d kicked closed the door to her room, deposited her on the makeshift mattress and was unbuttoning his shirt. He sat down to take off his boots, and then shoved down his pants with impatient hands. His erection was perfectly formed and suited his lithe body, glistening at the tip, his grin cheeky as he eyed her supine form and drawled in a mock English accent that still held a liberal Texas twang, “Lady Victoria, you are overdressed for this shindig.”
How many times had she been complimented on a new gown that her father had never paid for, or been given false flattery? But the open emotion in Jace’s face was worth much more than soft, smooth words. With deliberate coquetry, she murmured back, “Perhaps you can help me with that.”
“I can have you stripped bare and under me in about five seconds,” he promised, his voice holding a raw edge.
True to his word, he divested her of her clothing so fast that all she could do was laugh in protest over his haste in case he tore off a precious button, and then he tumbled her back, covering her with his larger form, his mouth hungry at her breast, his fair curls soft under her fingers.
When he entered her it was slowly, his caution evident in the slight sheen of sweat on his back under the press of her hands, and he exhaled when his cock slid all the way in, his eyes briefly closing. The first time was a swift culmination, but he never withdrew from her body afterward, whispering in her ear, his roving touch gentle for a man who was much more used to action, and then he was moving within her again, this time slow and deliberate. As the pleasure escalated, Victoria accepted it, accepted him, and arched into the penetration with a deliberate lift of her hips that was part of her newfound knowledge. She gave as well as took, and when she quivered against him in acute pleasure, Jace hoarsely said her name and went rigid for a second time.
Unlike Cole, who as far as she could tell, almost never slept, Jace tucked her close and drifted off, his arm possessive around her waist. Nestled next to his rangy body she felt very secure, especially knowing that Robert and Cole were nearby.
And she drifted away as well.
“So, what happened in town?” Cole rested his elbows on his knees, staring off over the darkness of the range, thin moonlight illuminating the corrals and giving the hulking barn definition. “I know something did.”
Robert leaned back on a crude bench, the slight creak of the wood telling. Insects in the cottonwoods in the courtyard keened in the background, and it smelled like rain in the aftermath of the storm. To put off answering, he asked, “And how in the hell do you know that?”
Cole turned his head, his ebony hair brushing his shoulders, his smile ironic. “Both you and Jace are like staring through a spring-fed lake. Crystal clear. You want to walk around it, and he’s so damned restless he dragged Victoria to bed like a starving man who’s seen his last meal. You think and he acts. Nothing there I haven’t seen before.”
“He’s in love with her.” Robert said it only in mild denial to buy more time. Things had been going so well for them.
“Aren’t you?”
Trust Cole to not dance around it. The crisp night breeze was fragrant with a hint of pine. “Yes,” Robert admitted, rubbing his jaw. He hadn’t taken the time to shave while they were gone, so it felt good to have it smooth again. He’d never liked a beard. “What man wouldn’t be? I’m trying to picture what it would be like here if we had never found her, and I’d guess the three of us would make a go of this ranch, enjoy working on our own place, and get along fine, but let’s face it, Cole, we’d be missing something. I didn’t really realize it until I found myself pushing the team to get here faster just so I could see her step out onto that porch and wave at me.”
Cole never had been one for overt displays of emotion, but for a moment his face was unguarded, maybe even vulnerable. “I was pretty glad to see the wagons coming too. I’ve never doubted my ability to protect myself…never cared all that much, if you want the truth. If something happened to me, well, that was just too damned bad. But if something happened to
her
, that’s different. The more guns we have here, the better I feel. You’re hell with a rifle at long range, and Jace can draw faster than anyone I know.”
And Cole was just as good at both, and deadly in other ways too. Robert had seen him in a knife fight once, and if he’d wanted to, he could have carved the other man into tiny pieces and walked away not even winded. Lucky for his opponent, Cole had been in a generous mood.
“The Saxons have been in town,” Robert said bluntly. “The whole gang. They’ve already mentioned your name, just sniffing around. No one knows anything, or they didn’t until Frank saw me and Jace, which happened right out on the street. Lawrence must have gotten wind we’d headed this direction. We ran right into Frank, and it might have been better if Jace had just gone ahead and drawn on him, but neither one of us expected the situation. We were trying to keep this a tame visit.”
From the facts he knew, Lawrence and Cole had first run into each other years ago out east. Robert wasn’t sure what had happened after that, but the shooting of the two younger Saxon brothers in Arkansas definitely had involved some sort of vengeance on Cole’s part. He’d hunted them, and now, Lawrence was hunting him just as relentlessly.
“I’m not surprised.” All trace of emotion was immediately wiped from Cole’s face, replaced by an implacable mask. “I can even say I’m glad he found me. Just a matter of time before we settle our old score, so maybe it would be better sooner than later. I’m tired of waiting for it. Lawrence isn’t as easy to kill as some, but all men are going to die someday. I
don’t
want it to be here at the ranch. The two-to-one odds of us against them don’t bother me much, but protecting Victoria sure as hell does.”
Robert agreed, but there was one definite problem. “We can’t go looking for them and leave her alone here. And before you suggest you go it on your own, forget it, Cole. Lawrence isn’t going to fight you fair one on one like a man. He’s a yellow mongrel, and you know it. If you run him down, he’ll just have you shot out of hand instead of facing you. Maybe two to one isn’t bad, but six to one is a damn long stretch no matter how good you are.”
His friend shoved himself restlessly to his feet. “I still might chance it. With me gone, I doubt they’ll care about this place. We all know with the dissention over slavery a war is coming. They’ll all be more eager to head back south if they think they can be part of it.”
Robert had to admit to a moment of startled comprehension. Very cautiously, he ventured, “Not that I agree with it either, but your quarrel with Lawrence is prompted by his support of slavery?”
“My quarrel with Lawrence Saxon is over his inhumanity.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Cole swung around, his face hard. “Care to hear the details of how I was crossing through Arkansas one summer night and heard a woman screaming? Want to know what Samuel Saxon was trying to do to her? And when his younger brother, who must have been the only decent one of the entire family, tried to stop him, Samuel shot him dead, and then the girl. And I shot Samuel. Oh yeah, it was fair and square, I made him draw, but the trouble was, she was not a white girl, the man that owned her was furious over the loss of his ‘property’, and since I’m not exactly white either, no one really took my side. I would have gone to trial if I hadn’t escaped that small-town jail, and I bet you I’d have hung. As an educated guess, I am going to say that Lawrence is not seeking revenge for his brother’s death, but for his brother being killed over a girl of color.”
That explained a lot. Robert weighed his next words carefully, because while Cole seemed implacable, he wasn’t. “I’d have killed him too.”
Cole blew out a tired breath and seemed to relax. “Fuck, Robert, of course you would have. You’re a decent man. Now, then, do you see why I want none of them near this ranch? I need to go take care of this away from here. This is big country. They may find us, they may not, but I’m not anxious to wait and see what happens if they do. What if they rode in, six strong, when only one of us was here with Victoria?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the need for action, but it needed to be calculated, and quite frankly, Cole was right. Victoria complicated everything. “If you get yourself killed, you’re a damn fool, and I have never thought of you that way. Look at what you’d be throwing away. Nice place, woman who loves you, not to mention a family someday, because I don’t think any of us are unaware of the probability that is going to happen sooner or later,” Robert argued in a reasonable voice.
“Sooner.”
Robert’s attention sharpened. “You know something I don’t?”
“Just a hunch.”
Being as Cole would have been dead long ago if it wasn’t for his almost mystical connection with the world around him, Robert nodded after a moment, the thought of a coming child startling, but then again, he’d just said himself it was bound to happen. “All the more reason we need a plan, and I happen to have one.”
Cole turned then, and for the first time, a flicker of amusement lit his dark eyes. “How come I’m not surprised?”
Chapter Twelve
“Tell me.” Victoria squared her slender shoulders. “What is so important that the three of you look so grim?”
She was right. Sunny morning, blue skies, a fresh breeze, and yet all of it was balanced by a sense of darkness. Cole didn’t know how else to describe it except that there was a shadow, and for the light to come back, it had to be lifted.
This was his problem essentially, though it had become a problem for them all, so he was the one who said, “You’re going up into the mountains.”
“What?” She stared at him across the rough-hewn table, her oh-so-beautiful eyes full of confusion.
Robert, ever thoughtful, reached over, poured her more coffee and then took a spoonful of sugar, a luxury they hadn’t had before the trip to town, and stirred it into her cup. He said quietly, “We all agree, Victoria.”
“That would be fine as long as I agree also.” Her chin went up before she lifted the cup daintily to her mouth. “And I won’t until you answer my questions.”