His fingertip traced along the ridge of her collarbone, eliciting an unintentional shiver. “I’m not the fool your brother takes me for, darlin’. An’ my sister’s got a big mouth.”
“Starla told you?” Shock and a sense of betrayal overwhelmed her.
“Now don’t get mad. She was just tryin’ to keep me from making that big a fool of myself. I’ve always liked you, Patrice, you know that. I just asked her if she thought it could be more than liking.”
“And she told you I was in love with Reeve?”
“Not straight out. She put it fancy so it wouldn’t hurt my feelin’s, something like your affections
were otherwise engaged or you would most certainly fall captive to my charms.”
Patrice relaxed and chuckled. “And were they hurt, your feelings?” She phrased it lightly, but he didn’t miss the tenderness beneath it, her wish that it not be so.
“
Non.
You know me, darlin’. I’m as shallow as a puddle when it comes to things of a romantic nature. Always regretted not getting to kiss you though. Bet you’d have delivered up one hellacious slap.”
She smiled, toying with the collar of his frock coat. “Maybe not.”
Knowing Tyler’s reputation, it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to go off into the shadows with him and make flirtatious remarks about kissing. But Patrice felt as close to him as she was with his sister. And she knew that behind all the bluff and bullying lurked a fragile heart that could easily be broken.
He looked at her, half-smiling, mystified by what he heard until her hand strayed up to his chiseled features, palming his cheek, drawing him toward her. He gave a quick inhalation of surprise then bent unhurriedly to claim her soft mouth.
Patrice wasn’t sure what she’d expected any more than she knew why she allowed him to kiss her. Perhaps it was a need to connect with another, to share an uncomplicated moment of closeness. Or simply to relieve some of the stresses Reeve Garrett’s arrival had placed upon her emotions. It was unfair to Tyler, but he could be trusted to handle her heart with care.
His kiss was warm, pliant, surprisingly pleasant. His tongue slipped past her responsive lips for a leisurely exploration. The smooth tang of bourbon
he brought with him was far from disturbing. No one had ever taken such intimate liberties with her before. She could blame the champagne, but instead of being outraged or horrified, she enjoyed the experience for what it was. Nice, but not arousing.
Tyler leaned back with a ragged laugh. “Oh, darlin’, enough. Any more of that, and I’ll be tempted to ravage you.”
She responded to his husky innuendo with a hug. Tyler stood still and stiff, not daring to do more than place his hands lightly on the sides of her waist.
“Patrice, you stop teasin’ this poor fool. I know this was all just to distract me from gettin’ an answer to my question.”
She batted her eyes up at him. “What question, sugar?”
He chucked her under the chin. “You an’ my sister, two of a kind. Always playing with fire thinking you won’t get burnt.”
“You’re a good man, Tyler Fairfax.”
Her statement startled him, sobering his mood. He stepped back so his features were redrawn by shadow. “You’re wrong there, darlin’. An’ that’s a dangerous mistake to be makin’.”
“Patrice?”
Reeve scanned the circle of meticulously laid bricks awash in moonlight. He saw cozy benches and neatly edged triangular herb beds divided by the narrow path. Crushed thyme and bay leaf scented the air. But no sign of either Patrice or Tyler. Breath chugged up from his chest in a tempo borne of panic and rage. If Tyler dared—
dared
!—hurt her … He couldn’t finish the thought. His and Tyler’s friendship dated back to their first steps, but friendship wouldn’t still his dark passions if one uninvited hand was laid.
Just when Reeve decided to try another path, Patrice staggered out of the bushes. She wobbled to a halt when she saw him, and stood staring like a startled doe, her eyes huge glittering pools of dismay. Tears streaked her ghostly pale cheeks. Kiss-swollen lips trembled.
His gaze lowered, taking in the evidence of his worst fears.
Grass and mud stained the bell of her gown, its silvery lace torn loose and hanging like beards of moss on a live oak. A damning rent separated bodice from skirt at the side of her waist and below, a deep slash scored through silk and cotton petticoat displaying hints of bare thigh.
A stark possessive instinct overcame him in an instant. In two long strides, he’d reached her and snagged her up tight against his chest, folding her close where nothing, no one would ever harm her again. His face mashed against her lopsided hair knot, his lips moving upon that russet satin, mouthing the sentiments spilling forth from his soul.
“Oh, God, God, Trice, I never should have let you come out here with him. I’ll kill him. I swear, I’ll kill him!” That last issued through clenched teeth.
She struggled wildly. At first he could hear only frantic noises from where her face pressed into his shoulder. Anxious, awful sounds. That finally became words.
“Are you mad?! Let me go, Reeve! What’s gotten into you?”
“Patrice.” He made his tone gentle, full of empathy. “I won’t speak a word about what’s happened here. I would never see you hurt by scandal. Just tell me one thing. Did he hurt you?”
She pushed back and stared at him, the glassy brightness of distress fading to a fog of annoyed bewilderment. “What are you talking about? Reeve Garrett, have you lost your mind?”
He cupped her elbows within his palms, preventing her from backing away from him. “I saw
Tyler bring you outside. You don’t need to pretend. I can guess what happened. He can be persuasive, and he can be thoughtless when it comes to getting what he wants. You don’t need to feel ashamed.”
He’d expected her to go all weepy and grateful at his vow to protect her virtue. Or at least, all prim and prickly in continued denial.
He never expected her to laugh.
The sound burbled up from deep inside her. At first he thought it was approaching hysteria.
Then an ugly sense of being the fool came over him. Patrice’s fool. He set his teeth and growled from between them, “What’s so damned funny?”
Her voice was as sweetly tender as her amusement. “Tyler? You thought he and I—that we …?”
“Your gown …”
She glanced at the mussed state of her clothing. “I stumbled off the path and fell.” Her gaze softened as it lifted to his once more. Her fingertips touched his cheek, stilling his anger in an instant. “For heaven’s sake, Reeve, you’ve more sense than to draw such conclusions. I’ve known Tyler since we were children.”
“Men change, Patrice,” he murmured, recovering from his fright with gruff defensiveness, “and not always for the better.”
The touching flattery of Reeve rushing to her rescue, the heart-rending fact of his anger, his willingness to save her honor took a bittersweet turn. Where was that offer when it would have meant something? Patrice withdrew her hand regretfully.
“How well I know that. I’ve watched them change right before my eyes.” She closed her eyes. “Go back to your party, Reeve. As you can see, I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t fine. As she readied to turn away, Reeve caught sight of a bright red stain seeping onto the ripped edges of her gown. Concern warred against the fact of her purposeful lie. Catching her wrist, he drew her close, his nose wrinkling.
“Don’t play games, Patrice. You needn’t lie to me. What you and Tyler do together is none of my business.”
She slapped at his hand, wounded by his cool disdain. “I told you, nothing happened between us.”
“The truth would smell sweeter if you rinsed out your mouth. Unless you’ve taken to the bottle, his bourbon is still on your breath.”
“So I kissed him,” she railed in anxious indignation. “So what? We’re friends. You didn’t make so much of the kisses you once gave me.”
His glare stabbed through her haughtiness with a bayonet thrust. “We were children then and not responsible for our foolish curiosities. You no longer have that excuse. You were engaged to my brother. I don’t want you sullying his memory.”
She gaped at him, so shocked, so
amazed
that he, of all people, would choose such an argument. She couldn’t think of what to say to express her outrage adequately.
Reeve watched her face go milk white. Her angry glare grew shiny with welling tears. He knew he’d gone too far, said too much. He took a breath, ready to apologize, but she spun away from him. With her first step, came a cry of surprise and injury as she clasped her thigh as it threatened to buckle. He was quick with his support, and Patrice, just as quick to shrug it off.
“Leave me alone! Go away!”
But even as she said those forceful words, she rounded over the favored leg, swaying to catch her balance. Reeve’s arm scooped around her middle, cinching up to still her struggles as he towed her over to one of the whitewashed benches.
“Sit.”
She obeyed, not because he told her to, but because she couldn’t stand on her own. In her pain and confusion, she never thought to protest as Reeve knelt beside her to part the torn edges of her gown. He bared a long pale line of naked thigh … and the five-inch gash cut into it. Patrice leaned back, woozy with shock at the sight of all the blood.
“Did he have a knife?” Reeve’s tone was so calm and quiet, it scared her.
“W-who?”
“Tyler. Did he cut you?” Again, the flat, dangerous control. Tyler wasn’t much for pistols, but he had an unholy fondness for a wicked length of steel.
“No. Tyler—Tyler had already gone back to the house.” She closed her eyes against the surge of sickness. “I—I fell. I caught my heel between the bricks and stumbled into the bushes. I snagged my dress on the sundial. I heard it tear, but I never felt anything … except embarrassment. And—and then you came along with your crazy conclusions. Oww!”
She jerked away from the press of his neckcloth.
“Sit still. Hold that there. Keep the pressure on. I’ll be right back.”
Numbly, she did as she was told this time.
Reeve stood, shrugging out of his frock coat. Without comment, he wrapped it about her trembling shoulders. Then he left her, huddled and shivering, bleeding all over his ascot, while he jogged
down to the stables. On his return trip, he took a covert second to check the sundial, finding a red-stained scrap of gray silk hanging from its metal point. Chiding his clumsy handling of the situation, he went back to Patrice. He managed a smile as he went down on one knee. Hers was a faint echo.
“This is going to sting a mite,” he warned as he blotted the area clean.
Patrice recalled her brother’s stoic endurance and sucked a deep breath, vowing to be equally brave. Until Reeve dipped his fingers into a pungent salve and rubbed it into the raw furrow.
It burnt like grain alcohol.
Patrice bit back her wail of distress, clamping her lips together until they bleached white. Her hands latched onto Reeve’s broad shoulders, her fingers sinking into hard muscle as her leg jumped and spasmed. He bent, blowing gently to cool the flame. As it gradually subsided, only then did Patrice consider their position; in the secluded darkness, her skin bared to his warm touch, his tawny head bowed and nearly brushing her bosom. An unsettling awareness began to burn hotter than whatever he’d smeared over her wound. Awareness of the way his hair curled over the back of his starched collar. Of the way his hands seemed so big and browned against the pale flesh of her thigh. Of his gentleness. Of the arousal simmering inside her ever since she’d caught sight of him in elegant evening wear.
His voice rumbled, a low vibration. “Forgive my words, Patrice. I shouldn’t have said them.”
“Words are easily forgiven.”
His gaze shot up at the feel of her fingertips grazing his temple, hooking his hair back behind his ear.
Just that faint brush of familiarity galvanized his emotions. Heat pooled to his groin. His gut tightened as if bracing unconsciously for a blow. Memories of the last time she’d touched him with such feeling brought confused desire to spin in his brain.
J will love you until the day I die, Reeve Garrett.
She’d kissed him then with all a young girl’s urgent passion, sealing her vow with the press of her eager lips. Did she remember the words as clearly as she recalled the kisses? If only she’d meant them.
Her expression was too complex for the strength of shadows slanting across her face. Her mouth pursed slightly with all the allure of one of those wet kisses. Her eyes became fathomless mists, deep, cool, and gray-blue, but something stirred there, something that caressed with a sultry whisper, that sparked, flint on steel. A question formed in tiny puckers between her finely arched brows.
Why? Why the distance, why the anger, why deny what we both are feeling?
And because he could answer in one word, one name, he rocked back on his heels, letting the tenuous moment escape them.
He began making a snug wrap around her thigh, using his discarded waistcoat, securing it with one of the ruined ribbon bows now dangling from her sleeve. His movements were crisp, efficient, the way they would be if binding a thoroughbred’s tendon while her hand continued to rest upon his shoulder. “You should see a doctor,” he advised. His bland matter-of-factness couldn’t quite offset the way his tone rasped in a low register.
“Doc Anderson fell at Nashville with a minié ball through his shoulder. We haven’t been able to find a replacement yet.” Her voice, too, was strangely
pitched, higher, airier than he remembered ever hearing it.
“Then apply this twice a day and keep it wrapped until it begins to heal pink and free of poisons.”
She made a face. “What is it, exactly? Some potion of your mother’s?”
He ducked his head, not in time to disguise his smile. “It’s horse liniment.”
“That’s what you use on the horses?” She pushed her palms against his shoulders, nearly bowling him over.
He laughed. The sound rippled, a fast-moving stream over a pebbled bottom, churning up dangerous emotions in its wake.
“Overlook its smell and sting, and it’s the best healing medicine I know.” He glanced behind him, toward the house. Dots of light shone through the bushes, fireflies on the dark night. “We’d better get back. Can you stand?”