Saviours of Oestend Oestend 2 (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Dante hoped to talk to Cami about Alissa that night as they sat in front of the fire, but it wasn’t to be. Tama, Jay and Alissa were all there, intruding on his time with Cami, making it impossible for him to broach the subject with her. He tried staying up late, hoping to have time with her after the others had gone to bed, but it was clear Alissa planned to spend every possible moment with Cami. Even after Tama and Jay had gone upstairs, the two sat talking on the couch. Cami kept glancing nervously his way.

He should go. He knew that. He should leave them in privacy. He had no reason to stay there, watching them like some kind of dour old chaperone. He kept his gaze on the fire and tried to decide what was keeping him in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alissa move closer to Cami. Again, Cami glanced his direction, undoubtedly wondering when he’d leave.

He made himself stand up. “I guess I’ll wish you gals goodnight.”

Cami looked up at him, her eyes wide, but he couldn’t read what was in them. Surprise, alarm or relief? He had no idea.
He took himself quickly out of the room and up the stairs. He went to bed, but he didn’t sleep. He lay there, listening for noises from downstairs while telling himself that he wasn’t. Wondering, yet telling himself he didn’t care. It wasn’t long before he heard them coming up the stairs. He tried not to pay attention. It wasn’t his business which room they slept in. It meant nothing to him if they happened to go into the same one together.
He heard them whispering in the hallway, then the door he knew was Cami’s closed. A silent heartbeat, and then light footfalls as Alissa went back down the hall. He heard the door to her room click shut.
He lay there several more minutes, debating. Would he have a chance to speak with Cami the next day? He suspected it wouldn’t be any easier than it had been today. He considered going to her room, knocking on the door, asking if he could talk to her. But by now, she’d be undressed. Probably wearing that traitorous robe of hers. It reminded him of the one and only time he’d been in her room. It had been disastrous.
He decided it was better to wait until morning.
He rose early and was inexplicably glad to see that the door to Alissa’s room was closed. She was still in bed. Maybe he’d be able to catch Cami alone.
She wasn’t in the kitchen, so he pulled on his coat and headed for the barn. It was bitterly cold this early in the morning, and he hugged his arms around him as he walked. Birds were crying overhead.
A lot of birds.
Dante looked up. Above him, flocks of them circled. A few hawks, several jays, some robins, and at least two dozen ravens. Tiny wrens flitted frantically through them all. Dante stopped, watching them.
It seemed like a lot of birds to be there at once. Was that normal? He didn’t think so, and yet, he’d never stopped to count birds before. He was usually in the house at this time of morning, and if he wasn’t, he was intent on his chores. Maybe it wasn’t as odd as it seemed. His determination to find Cami and talk to her before Alissa could interfere kept him from dwelling on the matter for more than a second.
He found Cami in the barn, wearing a garishly striped hat. A bright red scarf hid most of her face. Only her big brown eyes were visible, but he thought she smiled when she saw him.
She leaned away from the cow she was milking to pull the scarf down a bit, revealing cheeks made rosy by the cold. “Isn’t it a great day?”
Great?
Dante thought about that for half a second. He hadn’t noted anything unusual about it, except maybe the birds. It was much like a million other Oestend mornings. But Cami was smiling at him, and he found himself saying, “I suppose it is.”
“I love when it’s like this. Like winter is trying to hold on, but he’s getting old and tired, and spring is sneaking up behind him. It reminds me of the story of the old lady and the winter bears. Have I told you that one?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Remind me tonight, and I will.”
“I will,” he said. He was already thinking about being in the living room with her. The fire would be crackling in the hearth, making light dance like magic around the room, and he could watch her sew.
Except they wouldn’t be alone.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. He grabbed the extra three-legged stool and pulled it over to sit next to her. “About Alissa.”
She turned quickly back to her milking. He wished she was still looking at him so he could judge her response, but with her turned away, he had no idea what she was thinking. He could only see the stiff set of her shoulders.
“Tama has asked if I’ll let Alissa come and live here.”
A short pause, then, “Will you?”
“Well, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. I want to know how you’d feel about having another woman here.”
“Are you talking about women in general? Hiring maids instead of hands? Or do you mean just bringing Alissa here?”
Of course he’d meant the latter. He’d never even considered running a maid ranch. But the fact that she would ask such a thing brought him up short. “I don’t know,” he said. “Does it make a difference?”
She shrugged, but didn’t turn to look at him. “If you hired maids instead of hands, I wouldn’t have to be so careful.”
He thought about that for a minute. On some level he’d known she was uncomfortable around the hands, but it hadn’t ever occurred to him to do anything about it. He’d only ever worked male ranches. His first instinct was to stick to what he knew. After all, men could work harder than women, and he knew how to handle them.
On the other hand, women made less money than men, so it wasn’t as if he’d be paying equal money for less work. If it made life easier for Cami, would it be worth it?
And what about for himself? Maybe the fact that he wasn’t attracted to women meant he’d be better off surrounded by them rather than by men like Frances who knew how to tempt him.
Regardless, a change like that couldn’t be made overnight. What he needed to know about right now was Alissa.
“What about the other?” he asked. “What if it was just her?”
Cami looked down at her lap. Her cheeks were turning an even deeper shade of red, and Dante suspected it had nothing to do with the cold. She pulled the sleeves of her coat down over her hands and glanced sidelong at him. “Do you want her here?”
“Only if you do.”
She smiled a bit, looking back down at her lap. “She’s nice,” she said. “It’s nice to have somebody to talk to.”
Dante’s heart fell a bit. “I see.”
“I’m glad they came.”
“I’ll let them know,” he said. “We’ll have to figure out if I need to go down and get her stuff, or if somebody from the BarChi can bring it up—”
“I don’t want her to live here.”
Dante’s heart skipped a beat, and he stopped short, unsure what to say. There was no reason her words should have made him as happy as they did.
“The thing is,” Cami went on, “if she just wanted to come here and work, it would be one thing, but I think…”
She stopped, biting her lip nervously.
“You think what?” he prodded.
She was embarrassed, he could tell, but she answered. “I think she wants to come here for other reasons.”
“She wants to be with you.”
She nodded and finally turned to face him. “I think letting her come here would give her the wrong idea.”
“So you want me to tell her no?”
She fidgeted, pulling her scarf up again to cover her red cheeks. “Maybe,” she whispered. “But she’s my friend.”
It confused him for a second, but then he thought he understood. “You don’t want to hurt her feelings, right? You want me to be the bad guy.” It was more a statement than a question, but he knew he was right.
She nodded slowly. “I know it’s not fair of me—”
Dante found himself smiling. “I don’t mind a bit.”
Dante whistled as he walked back to the house. He was pleased Cami wanted things to stay as they were. Nobody would be coming to intrude on his home or in his life. Nobody would interfere with him hearing about the old lady and the winter bears. Nobody would take her away from him.
He was so busy planning what to say to Tama, he barely even noticed the birds.

* * * *

By the next day, the unnatural number of birds overhead could no longer be ignored. Tama, Jay and Alissa glanced nervously at the sky as they climbed into the wagon to head home. Even Alissa’s disappointment at not being allowed to stay seemed to be overshadowed by the presence of the birds.

They were everywhere. Flocks of them obscured the sky and covered the buildings. The barbed wire of the fences sagged with them, as did the clotheslines. Cami had to string a wire across the kitchen to hang laundry on, because anything hung outside long enough to dry inevitably ended up spotted with bird droppings. The bigger birds attacked the smaller ones. The half-eaten carcasses of robins and house wrens littered the ground. Sometimes the crows and the bluejays attacked the ranch hands as they worked.

Their activity seemed to come in waves. Bunches of them would land and sit quietly for an hour or two on the fences and the tree branches. Then suddenly, something would set them off. They’d take to the air, screeching and chirping and cawing with an unnerving raucousness.

More birds came each day. By the fourth day, even Dante’s most stalwart hands seemed shaken. They wore their hoods up and kept their eyes on the ground as they hurried about their chores.

The animals, too, were spooked. Horses rolled their eyes and snorted distrustfully when led out of the barn. The cattle huddled together, moving as a nervous herd back and forth across the pasture as if searching for a patch of earth not shadowed by the flock.

There was none to be found.

A heavy feeling of tension seemed to lie over the ranch. Dante could see it in the hurried steps of his hands. He could hear it in the lowing of the cows. The funny thing was, he couldn’t quite feel it. He went about his own chores feeling light and free. He wasn’t sure when he’d last felt so content. A few birds in the sky did nothing to quell his happiness. Even the ever-stronger smell of bird shit couldn’t bring him down.

He wasn’t sure if the birds bothered Cami the way they bothered the hands. She complained about the disruption to her days, yet she did it half-heartedly. She was the only other person on the ranch Dante saw smiling, and he found her smiles unbelievably contagious.

“Why are you so happy?” she asked him on the sixth day, when he came in from his afternoon chores.
“Who says I am?”
He tried to make it sound like a challenge, but Cami wasn’t intimated. “I couldn’t decide if there were less of them, or if it was wishful thinking.”
He leaned his hip against the kitchen counter next to where she stood shelling peas into a bowl. He thought about the flock outside. “Seems about the same to me.”
“Your men are spooked, you know.”
Yes, he knew. “They’re just birds.”
“You’re the only person on the ranch who still whistles. Either they don’t bother you like they do the hands, or you’re good at putting up a front.”
“They’re just birds,” he said again.
She smiled. “And the sun is just a star.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he said nothing. He stood and watched her instead. He liked the way her long fingers worked the pea pods, pulling the stems so a long green string peeled away, squeezing the pod just right so it opened up, revealing the soft curve of peas nestled inside. The stems and strings went into a pile, peas into one bowl, empty pods into another for Dante knew not what. He liked the way she stood, leaning forward against the countertop. Her skirt stopped an inch short of her boots. She had one foot tucked back behind her other ankle. He liked the bend of her back, as she leaned over her task, and the way her hair fell forward, hiding her face. He wanted to reach out and brush it aside. He actually started to move his hand towards her, but then stopped himself. He wasn’t sure he was allowed such an intimacy with her, although he suddenly desperately longed for it.
Cami glanced sideways at him, smiling shyly. “You’re making me self-conscious.” “I’m sorry.”
“Am I doing something wrong?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you watching me so closely?”
Because you’re beautiful.
The words nearly left his mouth before he realised he’d thought them. It surprised him, and yet, it was true. Suddenly, she seemed like the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. He wondered how he’d ever looked at her and thought her to be anything less than stunning. He’d thought her eyebrows a bit too thick, her jaw a bit too wide, her body straight and lean instead of curvy, hips uncharacteristically narrow. They were things that had seemed out of place at the time, but now he realised why. Not only that, but he knew why he no longer found them incongruous. It was because those things hinted at her underlying masculinity. Hidden. Subtle. But undeniably still there.
He’d never really thought of it in those terms before. She was otherwise so utterly feminine—the way she moved, and the notes of her laughter, and the sharp, strong heat of her anger. But in that moment, it came back to him, the memory of seeing her naked. The alluring flatness of her chest, and the softness of her stomach as it dipped down to her groin. And hanging between her legs, the heaviness of a man’s cock.
A surge of arousal hit him, so strong, it took his breath away.
She turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
Was something wrong? Other than the fact that he had a raging hard-on? Other than the fact that he wanted her in a way he probably shouldn’t? No, nothing was wrong. Nothing, except that his entire world seemed to have turned upside down. All this time he’d lived with her and enjoyed her company and appreciated everything she did. He’d spent time with her, taken meals with her, listened to her stories, and yet he’d never quite realised how strong his feelings for her had become. He’d wanted to think of her only as a woman who shared his home and occupied some small corner of his life. Why had it never occurred to him that she could be more? Maybe because the dress she wore still fooled him more often than not. Maybe because he’d spent months doing nothing but pining for a man he couldn’t have and feeling sorry for himself. Whatever the reason, his eyes were open now. And he desperately wanted more of her.
“Dante?” She sounded half amused and half alarmed, probably because he still hadn’t answered her. Her eyes were bright with laughter, her full lips parted in a semi-smile, and her voice woke him up and pulled him forward, towards her.
He circled her waist with his hands and pushed her back against the counter, wanting to feel every inch of her body against the length of his, but the look on her face stopped him short. Her smile disappeared, and her eyes widened in what might have been surprise or arousal, or even fear.
Not that,
he thought.
Don’t let her be afraid of me.
He stilled himself, forcing himself to be gentle. He raised his hand and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. “I won’t hurt you.”
She closed her eyes, as if debating his words, but when she opened them again, she smiled flirtatiously. She threw her head back, tossing her hair over her shoulder, as if daring him to kiss her. “You don’t scare me.”
Whether it was true, or whether it was false bravado, he didn’t know, but he found himself smiling at her words. And at what he found in her eyes. Was that wicked invitation he saw in them new, or had it been there all along and he was only now seeing it? Either way, he had no intention of letting it pass him by.
He pulled her close and kissed her. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done. With the few sexual partners he’d had in the past, both men and women, he’d never quite felt at ease, but here, with her, it seemed like the most natural thing he could do. She was sweet and soft and her slim body fit perfectly against his.
What amazed him the most was how eager she was. How absolutely ready she seemed to be, as if she’d known all along this was where they were headed and had only been waiting for him to catch up. He reached for the buttons on her blouse, and she gave him room to undo them, panting impatiently against his lips until at last he had her shirt open to the waist. He slid his hand inside and caressed her, cupping the breast that wasn’t there. It was strange, and yet unbelievably arousing. Yes, her chest was flat, but her skin was smooth and soft, her nipple erect, and when he brushed it with his thumb, she moaned. It was the most masculine sound he’d ever heard her make—low and deep in her throat—and it felt as if it went straight to his groin. She put her head back, arching into him as he stroked her. Her neck was pale and slender, but with her head thrown back as it was now, her Adam’s apple gave her away. Dante put his lips on it and kissed it. He wanted to celebrate it. Somehow the mix of masculine and feminine he found in her was the most arousing thing he’d ever experienced. Not only that, but it seemed absolutely right. There was nothing that felt out of place. It all made perfect sense—her softness, and the feminine pout of her lips, and her reaction to his touch, and the hardness of the erection underneath her dress. How could she be anything other than she was, the perfect meeting point of both sexes? She was exquisite, beyond anything else he’d ever experienced.
He opened her blouse wider and kissed his way down her neck, ducking his head and halfway lifting her up in his arms so he could feel the bud of her nipple with his lips. He flicked it with his tongue, and smiled at the way she moaned in response. He sucked it into his mouth and felt a shudder move through her body. She made a soft sound, something that was barely more than breathing, and yet was so much more. It spoke volumes. It turned him on even more. He thought he could almost come if she made that sound again.
He sank down to his knees to kiss her stomach. It was perfectly smooth and flat, with only the barest hint of a trail of hair below her navel, leading down to the waistline of her skirt. He reached down to the hem of her dress and lifted it. He put one hand on each of her ankles and slid his hands up her long legs, towards her groin. But as his hands moved upward, she grew still. He gripped her hips, still kissing her stomach, carefully avoiding the bulge that brushed his chin.
She put her hands on his, stopping them on her hips, and when he looked up, he was dismayed to see her expression. Although her cheeks were still flushed, caution and wariness seemed to have replaced arousal.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice a low whisper.
The question confused him. He wanted nothing
from
her. He only wanted things
for
her. He wanted to make her feel as beautiful as she looked. He wanted to see her with that wicked, flirtatious look again. He wanted to hear her moan. He wanted to make her come so hard she saw stars. But how could he say all that?
“I want you to be happy.”
Cami blinked at him, then slowly the doubt on her face turned into a shy, hesitant smile. She reached down and put her hand against his cheek. “Really?”
He put his hand over hers and turned towards it to kiss her fingers. He wondered if he could coax her shyness back into the unapologetic arousal he’d felt in her as they’d kissed. But before he could get any further, he heard the door behind him burst open. Cami spun quickly away from him, pulling her blouse tight around her.
“Oh Holy Saints, I’m sorry!”
Dante looked over his shoulder to find Frances in the door, although the boy had turned away, covering as his eyes just as Cami fought to cover her bare chest. Dante wanted to be annoyed, but he knew it was unreasonable. The kitchen was generally considered communal ground. It wasn’t Frances’ fault Dante and Cami had allowed themselves to get carried away in a place that afforded them no privacy.
Dante sighed as he got to his feet. He had to shift his pants over his erection. No sense in worrying too much about hiding it. Frances still had his back turned. “What do you need?” he asked.
“There’s something you should see.”
“I’ll be right out.”
Frances practically ran from the kitchen. Dante might have laughed, except that the erotic heat in his groin was beginning to change into the very un-erotic ache of unfound release. He sighed again and turned back to Cami. She was trying to do up her blouse. Her cheeks were bright red, and when she looked at him over her shoulder, he saw that she was terrified.
“Did he see?” she whispered.
It actually took him a second to realise why she was so upset, but when he did, he could have smacked himself for being such a fool. How could he have exposed her to something so risky? Of course, the answer was simple. It was because he himself saw nothing odd about how she was—both male and female, somehow perfectly balanced. But he also knew that wasn’t how others would see it.
He put his arms around her and hugged her, although her back was still to him. She was stiff and tense in his arms. He kissed the side of her head. “Don’t you worry about Frances,” he said. “I’ll slit his throat if he says a word.”
She laughed, but it was a brittle, hollow sound. “I don’t want that.”
Dante doubted it would come to that anyway. Not with Frances at least. He knew he could reason with the boy. His real fear was that Frances might tell some of the others, and they might not be as rational.
“Don’t worry,” he said again. “I won’t let anybody hurt you. Not ever.”