Texas Lily (11 page)

"I do not mean to give that impression. And warriors aren't fearless. As you say, only fools are without fear. They are just better at disguising their feelings. If Clark takes his band of men against the Indians as he threatens, he will find old men and women and children. Ride with him, and you will see their fear."

Lily didn't ask how he knew of Ollie's plans. Half the ranch could have heard his shouting. Instead, she asked, "How do you know what he will find? Have you seen them?"

"They are related to my father's tribe. Their fathers and sons were massacred by Comanches several years ago, and many others were lost in epidemics. They try to live by raising squash and corn and fishing from the river. They mean no harm. This land has been theirs for centuries. They do not understand the difference since the white man's coming."

"I do not know how to stop Ollie," Lily murmured. Somehow she was disappointed that Cade had brought her out here to tell her this. He could have said as much in the morning in the middle of the yard.

"I know how to stop him. Just tell me if you learn when he is to leave."

"We don't need any more bloodshed." Lily rearranged her legs in preparation for rising.

Cade caught her arm, and he was suddenly very near, hovering over her, his dark face dangerously near. "There will be no bloodshed."

Perhaps she overreacted, trying to pull away. Cade's hand closed tighter to keep her from falling backward off the narrow ledge. Lily felt the heat of his touch, the overpowering mass of him, and then she was in Cade's arms, her hands scaling the precipice of his shoulders while their lips met and clashed.

The sounds of the night were nothing compared to the ringing in her ears as Lily felt the brand of Cade's tongue and instinctively opened to it. She gasped and swallowed and clung tighter as he delved for her soul and almost found it. She knew the iron musculature of his chest against the rounded softness of her breasts, the strength of his hands as they mapped her back, and the welling of desire that existed between the two of them. It had been years since she had known passion, but she remembered it with terrifying clarity.

She knew she had to break away, but there was nothing threatening in the hunger of Cade's kisses. Perhaps that was what called her to him so readily. His need seemed to be as great as hers. His hands and lips gave as much as they took, and they grew strong with her response. It was intoxicating to the point of madness to have this man reduce her world to the heat of his kiss and the press of his body as he lay her back against the grass.

Lily gulped for air as Cade's kiss wandered to her earlobe and his hand discovered her breast. As his fingers crept beneath her robe to touch her through the thin material of her gown, she melted into liquid heat. Desire poured through her with such rapidity that she could sooner catch the moon than stop him. She wanted his large hands against her skin. She wanted to touch him.

When she succeeded in peeling back his shirt and running her fingers along the ridges of his chest, Cade gasped in surprise and surged against her. The hardness of his arousal rubbed into her, but Lily had lost all ability to understand the implications of what they did. She turned her lips up for his kiss, only to be abruptly thrust away.

In astonishment, she watched as Cade sat up and struggled with his shirt, turning his back to her. And then with a cry of protest at this callous rejection, Lily leapt to her feet and ran heedlessly down the hill.

Cade was on his feet and after her within seconds, but she was fleet of foot and recklessly unaware of the treacherousness of the ground. He took it more cautiously, wanting to be certain one of them came out of this whole so as to carry the other back. Cursing beneath his breath, he watched her take the lead to greater lengths.

With a burst of speed when they hit the open prairie, he closed the gap. She was like a terrified bird with injured wings, running and desperately trying to take to the air, without success. He didn't want to harm her with capture, but there seemed no other choice.

Cade grabbed Lily's waist and spun around to take the impact as they fell to the ground. The fall knocked the breath from his lungs, and he could only hold her struggling figure while he gasped for air.

"Don't, Lily," he managed to get out as she flailed wildly with arms and legs, seeking to punish.

His use of her name made no impression. Lily turned in his grasp and tried to sink her teeth into any flesh she could find. Cade turned over and flattened her against the grass, effectively trapping her.

"You don't want what I have to offer," he informed her.

His words finally penetrated some still-functioning part of her brain, and Lily gave up her futile struggles. Even now, she could feel the desire flare up between them, a heat that boiled and simmered every place that they touched. She tried to move her hips away from the encroachment of his, and he shifted to relieve the strain.

"If I had taken what you offered back there, I would have brought you pain and possibly given you a bastard to bring you shame. That isn't what you want."

Of course it wasn't, but logic wasn't the best defense against what she was feeling. Lily turned her head away so Cade couldn't see her eyes. Grass bent and tickled her face, but all she could think of was the solid masculinity of him straddling her hips. She burned with desire, and she hated his rationality.

"Get off me!"

"Not until you tell me you understand. Serena's mother was my woman some years ago. She was desperate and I took her in and she repaid me with her services, but I am big and she was small and she hated every minute of it. She left me for a whore's life and returned only to dump Serena on my doorstep. I doubt that she is even mine. Her mother only meant to get even. Is that what you want of me?"

Lily shuddered and tried to make her mind overrule her body, but even as common sense told her to listen, her body ached for what it couldn't have. "Get off me," she whispered raggedly.

Realizing the sense of this order, Cade pulled back, even going so far as to yield her arms while he moved to a crouching position beside her, ready to run after her the instant she tried to get away.

She didn't. She lay sprawled there a minute longer, gazing up at the night sky and not at him while she recovered her equilibrium.

"Why?" she asked. "Why did you do that just to stop?"

"Because I'm a man and a fool," giving her the answer she already thought for herself.

"This doesn't make sense. I'm a married woman." As if that explained everything, Lily threw her arm over her eyes and refused to look at him.

"Tell me about your husband. What does he look like?"

Thoughts of Jim settled her churning insides. Jim had never done this to her, never turned her body and her emotions into roiling waves of tumult. "Jim was safe and sane and didn't ask impossible things of me. He was twenty years older and had been married before. He lost his wife and son and wasn't interested in anything but a partner to help him out here. He was grateful for all the help I gave him. I wanted to give him children, but I couldn't."

Cade had other interests besides where this revelation was leading him. He didn't want to know that she was starved for passion. He knew that already. And he didn't want to translate the remark about children. He preferred thinking of Lily and Roy as the happy family he'd never known. What he wanted to know was whether or not it was Jim's body he had found that day out on the prairie.

"Tell me what he looked like." The age was right. He'd been telling himself all along that the man he'd found had been too old for her. She had burst that bubble.

Lily sat up and stared at him. "He had lightish brown hair that was starting to recede. He complained that it made him look old, and he always wore a hat to hide it. He was about my height but he weighed quite a bit more."

As she hesitated, Cade prompted, "What was he wearing the day he left?"

She considered the answer. "He was wearing that old homespun shirt I made him. He didn't like to get his good ones dirty out on the range. And he wore suspenders because the pants he wore wouldn't fit over his stomach."

Cade groaned and turned away, staring out over the waving grass with a sickness where his heart should be. Much as it convenienced him to let other people think so, he wasn't made of stone. And he knew what he had to tell this woman was going to bring her grief.

"Jim is dead," he told the horizon.

Lily held still, willing the pain to slide through her. It was too late for tears. Aware of the tension in the broad shoulders of the man beside her, she asked carefully, "How?"

"You don't want to know that." Cade did, though. He wanted to know who had deliberately killed an innocent farmer and tried to disguise it as an Indian attack. One man immediately came to mind, and the reason was sitting right next to him. "I don't think he had time to suffer. I buried him out on the prairie. I can take you to him, if you like."

Lily breathed slowly, pumping gulps to fill her lungs with air. Her husband was dead. She had known it but hadn't believed it until this minute. Jim was never coming back. He was never going to be there to hold her hand again. He would never be there when the corn burned in the summer sun and the calves died in the January blizzard and the cotton drowned in a spring flood.

Never again would he tell her that everything would be all right, that they would work it out somehow, that things would be bigger and better next year. She had always believed him. She had held to his security and believed he was more powerful than God even when she was working beside him in the cotton field and cursing their lack of help. And now he was gone and there was no one to believe in. Except herself.

"I'll have to tell the others. Someone will have to find his grave and verify it's Jim. There needs to be services."

She ought to ask how he died, but she really didn't want to know. There were too many ways a man could die out here, and none of them were pleasant. She was better off not knowing.

Remembering the accusations that had flown the last time he had reported a killing, Cade was reluctant to comply, but he understood the nature of her request. "I'll lead the men out there."

To his surprise, Lily shook her head. "No, you'd better not. They're suspicious enough as it is. They'll never believe you didn't kill him. There... there won't be enough of him to show that you didn't, will there?"

It was Cade's turn to shake his head.

Lily nodded. Jim had been dead for nearly three months. She hadn't lived out here this long to remain ignorant of the effects of death. "You'll have to tell me how to find this place," she murmured, just to put something in the silence. "Is there a marker? I'll tell the men that a stranger passing through heard of Jim's death and told me about the body he'd buried some time back. I don't think it's too much of a lie."

Astounded not only that she understood his difficulty but also that she acted on the knowledge, Cade gave her the directions that would lead to the recovery of her husband's remains. She could do with the information as she wished, but he was thinking it might be wisest not to tell anyone for a while, a long while. If she was ready to accept the status of widow, though, he couldn't stop her.

Cade knew what he was thinking was impossible. He knew all the odds were against him. But remembering the passion they had shared, he couldn't quench the one thin flame of hope rising within him. Here was the answer to his quest—in this one lonely young widow with a desire as hot as his own and eyes that didn't see the color of his skin. He didn't know if he could do this to her. She deserved a great deal more than he could offer, but he couldn't squelch the hope. He had to have something to make life worth the trouble of living.

Unconsciously, he reached for the flask of whisky that wasn't there.

Chapter 9

Lily halted the vociferous complaints of her angry farmhands over Abraham's hiring with the simple expedient of holding up her hand and informing them that she needed volunteers to bring back Jim's body. The startling change of subject silenced them enough for Lily to give her prepared story of having received the information from a stranger passing through.

It would have been an easier tale to tell if she had waited a day or two until she had had the opportunity to go to town and actually to be seen with some stranger, but the information had her nerves frayed and this group complaint was about to push her too far. The fact that Ollie Clark—having drunk himself into a stupor on her parlor floor the night before—now stood behind her with an I-told-you-so grin only made her need for control more urgent. Lily could feel the grin slide off his face as soon as she made the announcement.