Texas Moon TH4 (27 page)

"The children have gone off to bed. How soon can we follow?" he murmured hoarsely against her ear.

"Peter, we have to talk." She tried to worm her hands between them to hold him away, but she clutched his shirt instead. His vest and coat had been discarded much earlier in the heat of the evening.

"Talk isn't a solution. We're married, Jenny. It's time we start acting like it. I don't think you're afraid of me anymore, are you?"

She was terrified of him, but not in the way he meant. Her vulnerability terrified her. What he could and would do to her life and to her future terrified her. But what he would do to her body no longer held her in trepidation. She wanted to try that closeness again. She craved the intimacy. She needed to know he desired her. But none of that was strong enough to overcome all her other anxieties.

"You're going to leave me," she protested weakly.

"I'm coming back for you." Inexorably, he captured her waist and drew her toward the dark outline of the barn door.

"I can't be certain. Peter, this isn't seemly!" Panicking, Janice tried to resist as he dodged a circle of laughing guests and dragged her toward the shadows nearest the exit.

"It wouldn't be seemly to take you in that haystack over there, either, but that's what would happen if we stay in here. I've given you time, Janice. Do you still find me that repulsive?"

Shocked by this question, she allowed him to pull her outside where she halted and looked up at Peter's face. The handsome features she was coming to know so well were shadowed now, but she sensed some hurt in them. She touched her hand wonderingly to his cheek. "Repulsive? How can you ask that?"

"It's easy when I have a wife who darts out of my hands every time I touch her. Maybe we ought to talk. Maybe you ought to tell me what happened with that first man. Did he hurt you, Janice? Is that what this is all about? Or is it just me?"

"No, it's not you. It's us. We've gone about this all wrong. It can't work. You'll leave me, and I just can't go through that again. I just can't, Peter. Go buy your silly mountain, but don't touch me. It's better this way. You'll see."

She tried to pull away from him, lifting her skirts and straining against his firm hold while she spoke. Her own words heightened her sense of panic. She couldn't go through with this. He would go west and she would never see him again. She had vowed never to be left in that hideous position again, swelling with child and no man to care for her. Never, ever again.

She emitted a brief scream as a tall shadow loomed out of the bushes. Peter shoved her behind him when the figure stepped menacingly closer.

"I believe the lady wants to go, son. I'd let her, if I was you."

"Who in hell do you think you are telling me what to do with my wife?"

She heard Peter's astonishment. It would have matched her own had she not already been in a panic. She didn't know whether to run for help or run from herself.

"I'll tell you only once, sir. Let the lady go."

The stranger had to be inebriated. Janice started to scream, but she saw the familiar shapes of Tyler and Manuel emerging from the darkness. Her one goal now was to remove herself from the scene as quickly as possible. Peter would be fine. She wouldn't be if she allowed him his way.

Peter released her arm and swung at the stranger all in the same move. Janice gave a start of surprise at the swiftness of his action. She cringed at the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

Tyler gave a shout and started loping toward them. The stranger reacted with the same brute force as Peter, swinging with a powerful undercut that caused Peter to stagger but not to fall. Janice backed away, horrified. They were fighting over nothing, over absolutely nothing. They certainly couldn't be fighting over her.

Tyler grabbed the stranger from behind and tried to jerk him around. The man drove his elbow backward and connected roughly with Tyler's midsection before launching himself at Peter again. Peter dodged and drove his fist at his opponent's chin, narrowly connecting.

More men ran out of the barn to join the fray. In the darkness, she doubted that any of them knew who was fighting or why. Manuel shoved someone away and received a fist in his face for his efforts. Someone else attempted to pull Peter back from the stranger, and Peter struck out in self-defense. The stranger turned and plowed into Tyler when Tyler tried to retaliate for the earlier blow. The fracas escalated rapidly into a battle.

Janice eased away from the fray in disbelief. She was still shaking inside, but she couldn't readily identify the reason. She was terrified for Peter, but he didn't seem terrified for her. She had thought him a gentleman incapable of this sort of mindless violence, but his fists flew faster and harder than anyone else's. She ought to do something to break up the fight, but her instinctive urge was to run and hide while she could.

With the appearance of Evie and a band of women bearing buckets of cold water from the horse trough, Janice fled, leaving the field in the hands of better warriors than she.

In her heart, she knew this was the beginning of the end. She could only hope Peter accepted the fact gracefully.

Chapter 22

Peter knew the instant that Janice fled. Distracted, he didn't see the fist coming until he was on the ground. The fist couldn't hurt any more than his wife's flight.

Evie waded in then with her water battalion, and Peter rolled out of the line of battle. Already covered with dust, he didn't need the mud that would result from a horse trough full of water. What he needed was already across the lawn and disappearing inside the house.

He cursed himself for allowing the stranger to interfere. He knew his own pent-up frustration had caused him to lash out, yet he had to wonder at the stranger's intrusion.

He glanced over his shoulder, but whichever of the mud-covered warriors was his nemesis, he couldn't tell from here. It would serve no purpose to seek him out now. He had to find Janice before she shut him out completely.

He wished he knew what he was doing wrong. She was his wife, for heaven's sake. Maybe he'd been a little crude that first time, but he'd done everything he knew how to make it up to her since then. Did she intend to put him off forever? He didn't have forever. He only had tonight before he had to ride out. He could be gone for months. He couldn't wait for months.

He raced across the lawn and into the house, knowing without thinking about it that Janice would be headed for the safety of the tower. He might know very little about the woman who was his wife, but he knew the illusion of strength that she wielded against the world was just that—an illusion. She had learned to wield it very well, and it was an effective disguise, but he had caught glimpses of the broken little girl behind the facade. The little girl was the one who ran.

His breath came in short pants as he reached the top of the tower. He breathed a sigh of relief at finding the door to the suite still open. He still had time to convince her of whatever it was she needed to hear.

The sitting room wasn't lit, but he knew she was here. Peter crossed the room and reached for the door to the bedroom—and found it locked.

He stared down at the knob in astonishment. He hadn't even known the thing possessed a key. Despite all their arguments and disagreements this past week, Janice had never once locked him out of their room. He had slept beside her every night—horny as hell, maybe, but he'd been in the same bed with her. He couldn't believe that after everything had gone so smoothly, she would lock him out now.

If he was any kind of man, he'd tell her to go to hell, leave after the race, and file for a divorce as soon as he had the money. No woman was worth this kind of trouble. There was obviously something wrong with her in any case. She'd been willing enough earlier, he'd wager. It wasn't as if he were in the habit of forcing her. She'd just been an old maid too long, maybe.

But he wasn't any kind of man, he guessed. He'd married this woman and he meant to have her. He'd allowed too many things and too many people to slip through his hands in the past. He didn't intend for it to happen again. He didn't know what he would have to do to hold her, but he knew he wouldn't allow her to hide from him anymore.

As his mind churned with these decisions, Peter inspected the window overlooking the trees. The moon was on its way out, but its light still illuminated the side of the tower and the flat roof of the gallery below. He glanced over at the other window, the one leading into the bedroom. It would have to be open like this one to let in the air. It would be too hot to breathe otherwise.

He had to be insane to contemplate what he was contemplating. The Monteigne mansion was two stories tall with a walk-up attic above that. The tower stood another story above the attic. It was a damned long way down to the ground. But right at this minute, Peter didn't see any other course.

He had no intention of begging and pleading at the door. And he damned well wouldn't sleep on any couch. He meant to sleep with his wife, where he belonged.

The party was still going on when he came downstairs. Peter sent a pair of sleepy children peeking out the curtains back to their beds, checked to make certain Betsy slept, then headed out to the yard. He'd seen a ladder thrown against the stable when they cleaned out the barn.

It wasn't easy maneuvering the long ladder through the front doors to the second floor, but it wasn't long enough to reach from the ground to the tower. Alicia Monteigne peered out her bedroom door to see what he was doing, but Peter was beyond caring what other people thought. Let the girl tattle tomorrow. By then, he'd have settled this matter with Janice.

He left the ladder lying in the second-floor hall while he ran up the stairs to inspect the attic windows. As he'd thought, the dormer window overlooking the second-floor gallery roof was just barely big enough to allow the ladder through.

He retrieved the ladder and carried it up the second flight of stairs. By this time, he knew he was crazy. He wore his best trousers and shirt, and they were ruined with dust and sweat. His jaw throbbed where the stranger had hit it. He probably looked as mad as he felt. But he was determined to have the woman lying in the bed just above this floor, just like he would have that mountain if he had to kill himself doing it. A man had to set his sights on some goal and pursue it. He'd rather make an ass of himself going after what he wanted than to sit around complaining that he couldn't have it.

It wasn't easy maneuvering the ladder out the narrow window, but he managed it. It rested nicely on the gallery roof, but it came somewhat short of the tower window. Peter eyed the distance and wondered if Janice was asleep yet. He hoped he hadn't left his guns in the bedroom. If she wasn't asleep, she might think him a burglar and shoot him.

That thought didn't deter him. He swung out the attic window to the gallery roof, moved the ladder into a stronger position, and began to climb.

* * *

Lying in bed with the mosquito netting pulled back to allow in every breath of air, Janice heard the scraping noises but paid them no heed. She had heard Peter follow her into the suite, heard his footsteps outside the door, heard the knob turn. She had held her breath and waited for his cries of outrage, but they'd never come. He had simply walked out again.

She didn't think she wanted to cry. She was accustomed to being alone. It was much better that things ended this way, before they did or said things they would regret later. Peter would come to understand that he was better off without her. He might even be grateful for her decision sometime in the future. She just wasn't entirely sure about herself. She didn't know how she would survive. But it would surely be much easier to go on now, before she came to rely on a man who wasn't reliable.

The scraping noises grew odder. If the wind had picked up to brush branches against the house, she ought to feel a breeze by now. The tower caught more of the evening breezes off the river than the rest of the house, but it still held the heat of the day. She was sweltering.

It didn't take but a moment's defiance to pull off her nightgown and throw it to the floor. There wouldn't be anyone here to notice, that was for certain.

The sheets weren't much cooler than the gown, but the air against her skin felt delicious. She felt bold and daring and more in control of her life than she had been for longer than she cared to think. She shoved back the top sheet and stretched grandly in the huge bed, pushing the covers off with her toes and reaching her arms above her head. The action caused her breasts to rise, and she had a sudden vision of Peter pushing them up and telling her how beautiful they were. She lay still, and almost felt his tender caress. Her nipples grew hard and ached in response.