Trilby (20 page)

She nodded. “I’m not really surprised.” She lay back against the pillows with a soft sigh. “It’s for the best. We were little more than enemies long before I lost the baby.”

He put the bowl and spoon aside and took her pulse. It was a bit fast, and he smiled at the evidence of how he affected her. He put the stethoscope around his neck and looped it up to his ears. “Cough,” he instructed, sliding it under the bodice of the gown against her warm, soft skin.

She did, but the feel of his hand was making her giddy. She knew that her heart was going crazy, and that he could hear it. Her whole body clenched at the faintest brush of his fingers.

He lifted his head, suddenly aware of her nervousness. He stared at her, but he didn’t move his hand. Very slowly, almost experimentally, he moved his fingers away from the broad metal circle of the stethoscope and onto her bare breast.

She caught her breath audibly. But she didn’t move.
Or push at his hand. Or protest. Her eyes grew very wide and curious.

His lips parted. He stared intently into her eyes while he explored the soft curve of her breast, lingering on the sudden hardness of her nipple. He took it between his thumb and forefinger and caressed it very gently.

“Oh, my dear,” he whispered roughly.

She was shaking. He couldn’t help but notice it.

He withdrew the stethoscope and put it aside. His big hands went to the buttons of the flannel gown, tremulous as they hesitated there.

She put her own hands on top of them and pressed, very gently.

It took a few seconds, because he was clumsy in his need to see her, to touch her. He helped her to sit up and slowly pushed the gown down to her waist, careful not to hurt her where she was burned.

She sat there, enthralled, her eyes on her breasts as he traced them with just the tips of his big, square-tipped fingers.

She wasn’t big, but she was firm and beautifully formed. It was erotic to watch Todd’s hands, so gently caressing her.

“I never…enjoyed it…before,” she whispered.

His eyes slid up to meet hers. “You are beautiful,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”

She felt the awe that was reflected in his soft eyes.

“Gently,” he whispered. He eased her into the curve of his arm and slowly bent to press his lips slowly, tenderly, to her swollen breasts, to the hard nipples. He suckled her, so gently, and his big hand cupped her, to hold her up to his hungry mouth.

Her hands, trembling, caught in his thick, straight
hair and pulled. She made a helpless sound deep in her throat and shivered.

He laid her back on the pillows, feeding on her white, soft body for minutes that stretched like hours. She sighed and moaned under the heat of his mouth, giving herself to it with aching abandon.

His control became more precarious by the second. When he touched her soft thighs, he lost it.

She moaned harshly. But then she moved, just a little, just enough to encourage him. He searched her eyes for only an instant before his hard, hungry mouth bit into hers and he groaned as he touched her with complete intimacy.

She stiffened as she felt the stark bareness of him against her, the absence of fabric. She gasped.

His head lifted just a fraction from her lips. “Let me pleasure you,” he whispered unsteadily. “I care for you…so much. Let me show you what it can be, what it should be.”

She looked into his eyes, embarrassed. But all at once, she relaxed, giving in to the soft, slow caresses of his hands. She jerked and her face grew taut with fear and shock.

“Don’t fight it, my dear,” he whispered tenderly. “Oh, Lisa, don’t fight me,” he groaned as his hips moved down and he joined his body with exquisite tenderness to hers. He gasped at the stab of pleasure, at the first intimacy he’d allowed himself since his wife’s death.

The tide of movement caught Lisa unawares and it was suddenly too late for protest. Curling waves of pleasure were emanating from the slow, stroking movement of his body. She caught at his broad shoulders, her eyes going blank, her lips parting as the tension began to
build madly in her body. She’d never known these sensations, never felt as if white heat were kindling in her belly and ropes were dragging her apart with pleasure. She’d never felt this incredible fullness of possession, the expansion of her own body to accommodate it. The tension was so great that it made her panic.

“Todd!” she cried, frightened.

“Oh, yes,” he whispered passionately. “Yes, yes, my darling, yes.”

She arched her back and began to shudder rhythmically, tiny cries tearing out of her throat as she became nothing more than an ocean-tossed bit of flotsam, riding the crest of something far more powerful and savage than she’d ever dreamed it could be.

He was whispering in her ear, secret things, shocking things, his voice as deep and erotic as his touch. As she started up the spiral again, her last thought was that she had never known what life was until now….

Afterward he calmed her with soft words and tender caresses and held her gently while she slept. When she woke, she told herself that it had been a dream. She never mentioned it, nor did he. But when she left to move in with Mrs. Moye, she knew that when her divorce was final, she would not be long alone. And so did he.

T
RILBY COULDN’T TALK
to her mother about what had happened on the camping trip. She couldn’t even talk to Sissy. Her conscience ate at her for several days, while her guests lounged around and made more work for her mother and herself. Only Sissy and Ben helped at all. Richard seemed to feel that service was his due, and Julie sulked in her room almost all the time.

Despite their joy at the news of their engagement that a strangely subdued Trilby and Thorn had given them, Jack and Mary Lang had been horrified at the news of the Mexican party attacking the young people in the mountains.

“This uncivilized place,” he groaned to Mary. “I wish I’d never been so wild to come out here. Now we can’t afford to go home, and it’s my fault. What if Trilby and the others had been killed?”

“But they weren’t, thanks to Thorn and that nice Apache man,” Mary said gently. “Do stop worrying,” she added, patting his arm. “It’s all right now.”

“Is it, though?” he wondered. “You know, there’s much talk of atrocities being committed all along the border. It reminds me of a powder keg, waiting for someone to light it.”

“We’re not very close to Douglas,” Mary said. “I’m sure we’ll be all right.”

“I wish I were,” he said, but he stopped worrying the point and conversation turned quite naturally to the engagement of Thorn and Trilby, about which both Mary and Jack were excited and pleased. “I must say, I never thought they’d do it,” he added, grinning. “All that eternal fighting. But I daresay they’ll make a go of it. It makes me proud that Trilby’s done so well for herself.”

Mary said, “I think Thorn has, too,” and laughed at her husband’s reddened face as he apologized somewhat sheepishly for undervaluing his own daughter.

R
ICHARD
, B
EN AND
J
ULIE
packed that same day in preparation for leaving the next morning.

“I really can’t bear another day of this.” Richard laughed apologetically. “The West just isn’t my cup of tea. I long for civilized society.”

“You are a snob, Richard.” Sissy sighed. “Well, go if you must, but I won’t miss Trilby’s wedding.”

“It was a rather rushed announcement, don’t you think?” Richard queried.

“Thorn said that they’d planned it for a long time. They’d only decided while we were on the camping trip,” Ben amended.

Richard was unpacified. “He’s taking advantage of her. She should come back with us and get away from him while she can. She isn’t suited to desert life.”

“Any woman would be suited to life with a man like Thorn, brother, dear.” Sissy chuckled. “He’ll take care of her; don’t you worry.”

“She was my girl first,” Richard said sulkily.

“How silly, when you did nothing but flirt with Julie from the day we arrived,” Sissy retorted softly,
so that Julie, already packed and waiting in the living room, wouldn’t overhear. “You pushed Trilby right into Thorn’s arms, and I’m glad. He’s twice the man you are.”

Richard’s face burned with rage. “I had better not hear of any assignations with that wretched Indian you fancy!” he told her.

“That wretched Indian saved your life,” she reminded him. “As to my private affairs, you have no right to dictate them. I do not answer to you.”

“Bah!”

“Don’t forget to write. Tell Mother I’ll come home after the wedding,” she added gleefully, winking at Ben, who hid a smile.

“Mother will be furious!”

“No, she won’t. She was in favor of my going to the university when you and Father snickered at the idea. I’ll be an archaeologist one day, you wait and see.”

“A woman’s place is in the home,” Richard said in their father’s sternest voice.

“Perhaps it was. Not anymore. And once we all become educated, there’ll be no keeping us at the stove all day.”

“Oh, bother. Let’s get packed, Ben. You can’t argue with anything female,” Richard said, with utter disgust.

Ben only shrugged, but the smile he gave his sister was warm and sincere.

Julie hardly spoke to anyone. She was a different woman going home, a sad shadow of her former self. She looked at Richard with cold eyes now, as disgusted with him as Sissy and Trilby had been. But he was so thick that he didn’t seem to notice.

At the station, Thorn managed to be on hand as Trilby said goodbye to the former man in her life.

He stood beside her, one arm loosely around her waist, while she shook hands politely with a gloomy Richard.

“I hope you’ll be very happy, Trilby,” he said stiffly, sparing a cold glance for Thorn. “Do keep in touch, won’t you?”

“Oh, you’ll have to come out and see us next year, when we’re properly settled,” Thorn said curtly. “I’ll arrange another hunting trip.”

“Well, yes, that would be nice,” Richard replied. He held Trilby’s hand a little too long for politeness and squeezed it. She’d passed beyond his reach. He was sorry that he hadn’t been more forceful while there had been time. Julie had blinded him to Trilby. Now she belonged to this arch ruffian, and God knew what would become of her. “Goodbye, Trilby,” he said gently. “I will miss you, you know.”

She smiled through threatening tears. It wasn’t sadness at losing Richard. It was the sense of letting go of the past. He was part of her childhood, her adolescence. It had always been Richard, her golden boy, in the depths of her heart. Now she was thoroughly disillusioned. Her dreams had been a silly girl’s musings. Richard was nothing like her sweet image of him. She was letting go of all she’d thought she loved, replacing her dreams of love with marriage to a man who cared nothing for her beyond obtaining her father’s water rights.

“Oh, my,” she whispered tearfully.

Richard, conceited to the last, thought she was openly mourning his loss. He caught his breath and would have
said something, but a sharp movement from Thorn and a look from jet black eyes made him back down.

“If ever you need me, I’ll be within reach, Trilby,” he said haughtily, and letting go of her hand, turned to stride toward the train.

Trilby could have laughed at that act of bravado, but she was too miserable. Her heart was breaking and she didn’t care if Thorn saw. He’d trapped her.

He did see. But he couldn’t find the right words to express what he felt. He wanted to apologize for backing her into a corner, and he wanted to throw young Richard off the train into a cactus thicket. Neither choice was practicable. It was obvious to him that Trilby loved Richard—and hated Thorn for making her love impossible.

He let her go roughly and moved away, his deft fingers rolling a cigarette while Trilby said her goodbyes to Ben and, stiffly, to Julie. Then the train was puffing away from the station and, minutes later, it was only a speck of smoke against the gray horizon.

It was cold in the wind, even for southern Arizona in December.

T
HE WEDDING WAS
held three weeks later, on another cool, dreary day. Mary and Jack had tried to talk Trilby and Thorn into waiting until the following spring to be wed, but neither of them would budge. Thorn was especially insistent about the date. Almost, Mary thought privately, as if he had some reason for hurrying. Of course, nothing could have happened out in the mountains. There were too many people to allow for indiscretion. Perhaps it was only that Thorn loved Trilby and was afraid of losing her to Richard. Yes, that had to be it. But…Rich
ard had gone, along with a somber Julie and Ben, back to Louisiana. So, why was Thorn so insistent?

The question went unanswered. Trilby stood in her long white satin gown with a face no bride should have shown on her wedding day, stiff and somber while she parroted her vows like a sleepwalker. There was no joy in either her posture or her face, and when an equally stiff Thorn bent to kiss her, she gave him her cheek instead of her mouth.

The distance between them was stark. The reception did nothing to lessen it, especially when Thorn’s cousin Curt came by to kiss the bride.

Trilby smiled at him, a gesture her husband had yet to receive. “Thank you, Curt,” she said softly.

“I’m really sorry for the way things began for you out here,” he said self-consciously. “I hope you and Thorn will be happy. I really mean that.”

“So do I,” she managed.

Sissy stared after him curiously. “He’s nice,” she said.

“Yes, he is.” She noticed that little Samantha looked uneasy when Curt spoke to her, and that she quickly went to her father’s side. But Trilby was diverted by Sissy and it went right out of her mind. She smiled at the picture her friend made in pink ruffles and lace. “You look very pretty,” she said, noticing that Sissy had her hair down for once.

“A certain tall gentleman likes my hair this way.” She sighed and glanced around them. “He isn’t here, of course. He’s doing the polite thing and avoiding me. Eventually I’ll hear a flute sometime in the night, and I’ll creep out to stand inside his blanket while we talk
about ancient races and recite Shakespeare’s sonnets to each other.”

“You’re not serious,” Trilby exclaimed mischievously.

“Oh, but I am. It’s so hopeless, Trilby,” she said, the humor going into eclipse. “There’s no future for us, but I can’t stay away from him. Every second is precious; I have to go home tomorrow.”

“You could come and stay with me,” Trilby said, grasping at straws.

Sissy laughed mirthlessly. “On your honeymoon? Certainly I could.” She grimaced. “Shame on you. What would Thorn say?”

“I don’t care.”

The other girl pressed her hands gently. “You aren’t afraid of him, are you?” she asked solemnly. “I don’t know much more than you do about it, but I’m a great reader. It won’t hurt much, and then if you love a man, it’s supposed to be very nice, despite what the older people tell you,” she whispered conspiratorially.

Trilby flushed, because she knew too much already. She couldn’t admit it. “I’m not afraid of him,” she said, darting a glance toward her tall, dark-suited husband in a nearby group of well-wishers.

“Samantha is,” Sissy noted, nodding toward the child. Samantha was standing all alone at the refreshment table, trying to look invisible. “I feel sorry for her. She’s just like me at that age. You, too,” she added, with a rueful smile at her friend. “Neither of us was particularly outgoing.”

“I’ll take good care of her,” Trilby said, her heart warming as she watched the child. “She’s had very lit
tle love. Her father isn’t the sort of man who believes in affection.”

“He might surprise you,” Sissy said. “He seems very deep to me, a man who hides what he feels because he doesn’t want to be hurt. He didn’t have a happy marriage, did he?”

“Why, no, I don’t believe he did.”

Sissy nodded. “Well, this might be the best thing for both of you. Certainly you’re better off with Thorn than you would have been with my brother, Trilby. I think you know it, too.”

“Yes, I know it. Richard was such a big part of my life,” she said slowly. “I suppose I wanted the past back so badly that I mixed it up with him.”

“Certainly you’re better off with Thorn. If Richard had even married you, he’d have left you at home while he chased other women. He can’t even be faithful to a girlfriend. How would it be to have to put up with a man like that inside marriage?”

“It would have been terrible,” Trilby confessed. “I thought I loved him once, you know,” she said sadly. “It took this trip to convince me that I never did. Not really.”

“You can learn to love Thorn. He’s very much a man, you know,” Sissy emphasized. “I don’t imagine you’ll have too many regrets.”

“That remains to be seen.” She put her hand through Sissy’s arm and drew her to the punch bowl while she closed her mind to the night ahead. “Let’s have some refreshments.”

L
ATER
, S
AMANTHA CAME
shyly up to Trilby, who knelt to be on a level with the child.

“I only wanted to say congratulations,” Samantha said in her quiet voice. “I’m glad you married my father. I hope you’ll be very happy.”

“I hope
you
will,” Trilby said. “I want us to be friends.”

“Will you have lots of babies, do you think?” the unsmiling child asked resignedly.

Trilby flushed. “We shan’t talk about that now, all right?”

That produced a faint smile. “All right.”

“We’ll have lots of time to get to know each other. I’ll try to be a friend to you, Samantha. Really, I will.”

“Do you love my father, Miss Lang?” Samantha asked in a very wise tone. “I mean…Mother.” She corrected herself stiffly.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just call me Trilby?” she asked the child, and neatly avoided answering her question.

“My father said that I have to call you Mother.”

“Suppose we do that just in front of him, then,” Trilby said softly, and smiled. “And when it’s just the two of us, you may call me Trilby.”

That brightened the dark young eyes. “All right, then.”

Trilby laughed. “It will be our secret.”

“Yes, indeed. Trilby, could you help me with my studies? I don’t want to have to live with Uncle Curt and go to school in town,” she said worriedly.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Trilby said. “I don’t like the idea of having you in Douglas right now with all this border trouble. I’ll talk to your father about it.”

“I’m glad.” She looked at Trilby with worried eyes. “I have to go home with Uncle Curt tonight. Must I?”

“I’m afraid so. Don’t you like your uncle and aunt?”

Samantha closed up. “They’re all right. I can come home tomorrow, they say.”

Trilby started to relent until she remembered that tonight was her wedding night. Only she and Thorn knew that it wasn’t going to be their first time alone together, but they could hardly advertise their indiscretion.

“Then, I’ll see you tomorrow, won’t I?” Trilby asked, and forced a smile.

T
RILBY AND
T
HORN
were kept busy saying goodbye to the guests until late. But inevitably they were alone together in the lamplit coziness of the living room with a small fire in the fireplace, sipping the last of the champagne.

After the guests had gone, Trilby had changed into a plain gray dress. She’d thought about putting on her night things, but she was too afraid that Thorn might misconstrue it as an invitation to her bed. That was the last thing she wanted right now.