Always You (10 page)

She promptly smacked his fingers away.

“Princess,” he growled, “I can’t have you thinking you’re no longer a desirable woman. Because even as you are right this very moment, you’re hardly—what did you say—a hag.”

“A compliment of the highest order,” she retorted, her eyes sparkling with anger. “Why, if that’s an example of your form of address, you must be downright
beloved
by the ladies, Cal. In fact now I understand why you snatched me from my bedroom; you must have to kidnap a woman to get one to notice you.”

She thought he’d be angry, but instead he laughed. A spontaneous, rumbling laugh that emanated deep from his broad, solid chest. And he was grinning from ear to ear. “Well, you’re not far off, Melora,” he admitted ruefully. “I’m not exactly a ladies’ man.”

She threw him a scathing glance from beneath her lashes. “No! What a
shock
.”

But her sarcasm bounced off him. Cal was too busy noticing the fetching picture she made in her crumpled green velvet riding habit, travel dust and all. “Maybe I need some lessons in proper courtship,” he heard himself say. Then he groaned inwardly.

Why was he talking to her like this? He’d never flirted with any woman in his life, had never known the first thing about how to make amusing small talk or to throw out flattering compliments. That had been Joe’s specialty, he thought.
I’m the tongue-tied one, the one who always went solo to those town dances or who made up excuses not to go at all.

And to flirt with Melora Deane, of all people, the woman pledged to his enemy, a breathtaking beauty he’d made up his mind to dislike before he ever met her, one who’d had an army of suitors, who’d proved to be as headstrong and annoying as any female that had ever walked the earth, and who was his prisoner.

It was wrong-headed and thick-skulled. Bordering on lunacy. He’d never been able to pay a compliment without stuttering to anyone but little old ladies and maiden aunts back home. How in hell did he think to trade flirtatious sallies with the belle of Wyoming?

As thunder cracked through the charged air outside the window, and Devil’s Creek shook with a rising, howling wind, and a gust as cold as mountain snow swept through the pitiful little room, Cal forgot all that. He forgot his awkwardness with women, his damned shyness. He was aware only of how close he stood to Melora Deane and how utterly, bewitchingly exquisite she was. Even with her thick gold hair cascading in wild tangles over her slim shoulders, even with her smart outfit looking more like beggar’s rags than what it truly was, even with all that, she was purely, heartbreakingly lovely. Those startling, vivid tawny eyes flecked with gold, the rich texture of her hair, the luminous glow of her skin that no amount of caked-on trail dust could diminish. And her lips. Cal caught himself staring at her lips.

Naturally pink and full, gracefully shaped like a satin bow, they looked more luscious than ripe strawberries, and he suddenly wanted fiercely to taste them.

He didn’t realize what he was doing, but his arms went around her faster than a rattler springing at its prey. Then slowly, watching her eyes widen with disbelief and fury, he lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers.

Shock coursed through him at the explosive contact. At the same moment lightning rent the night outside the window, filling the sky. But not only the sky, Cal thought in astonishment. It had struck them, both of them, sure as he stood here.

Hadn’t it?

His shoulders shook. And his loins tightened. Heat soaked through his denim shirt.

A current had flashed between them, soldering them together, him and this woman he’d been determined from the start not to care about. Yet here he was, his mouth locked on hers, burned and searing. As rain began to pelt down upon the dust and debris of Devil’s Creek, the slender fragility of Melora Deane was branded against his frame, and the soft thrust of her breasts against his chest knocked his breath away.

Wonderingly he kissed her, exploring the luscious honeysuckle taste of her. He entwined his hands in the velvet thickness of her hair, hair more golden than the sun, and kissed her some more. Kissed her thoroughly, hungrily. Consumingly.

He’d kissed only whores before now. But this was so entirely different, sort of like the joy of riding an unbroken bronc, Cal determined, knowing somehow Melora would have skinned him alive if she’d heard the comparison. He deepened the kiss as he parted Melora’s satin soft lips.
Yep, just like riding a bronc. It let you in for a hell of a wild ride, and the trick was to stay on till you were shook off
.

Thunder and lightning lit up the night outside the Wicke’s Hotel window, but though the night tossed like a horse bucking the devil himself, Melora Deane didn’t shake him off.

Didn’t even try.

Melora couldn’t breathe. She never even heard the thunder or saw the lightning slashes outside the window. But she gasped as Cal kissed her, igniting a golden wildfire inside her, a wildfire that licked through her with hot, sweetly dancing flames.

What on earth was he doing? How dare he? With all her being, she wanted to struggle against him—she actually lifted her arms to beat against him—but her limbs felt soft as butter, and her arms fluttered down again, resting instead across his broad shoulders.

It’s shock,
she told herself as Cal’s mouth burned across hers with demanding force, stifling her resistance with a jolt of pleasure so electric it made her brain feel like a sausage deep-fried in the skillet. As she responded without conscious thought, her arms swooped around his neck, clinging, begging, tugging him nearer.

With a soft moan her lips parted, then melted beneath his. His hat toppled off as she thrust her hands through the soft thickness of his chestnut hair.

Kissing Wyatt never felt like this,
she thought dizzily, and then as Cal’s mouth scorched kisses across her cheek, down her neck, into the delicate hollow of her throat, she thought nothing more but merely trembled like a poppy in the wind. Then his body moved against hers, and she felt the heat and strength and hardness of him.

She looked into his eyes and became engulfed in smoky green fire. Then, deliberately, his mouth claimed hers again with rampaging kisses, kisses that brought sensations so pleasurable the floor seemed to spin away, and she clung to him to keep from falling.

She felt herself under siege, being conquered, utterly vanquished, deluged. She couldn’t think, for she was rapidly surrendering. Dissolving into a thousand shards of glass, each one a brilliant rainbow of sensations she’d never experienced before—not with Wyatt, not with anyone.

And then a gunshot louder than thunder rang out from the street below, and Cal was recalled to his senses, pushing her away in shock as if she were a red-hot branding poker.

Flushing, Melora pressed shaking hands to her cheeks.

They stared at each other then until another shot rang out, at which point Cal recovered himself and swung toward the window.

“Just some drunken fool shooting his rifle in the air, gettin’ good and soaked,” he mumbled as he slammed the window shut, yanked the burlap curtain across the sill, and turned back to her.

Melora’s arms trembled. A drunk?
If only I were drunk right now, then I could have some excuse for what happened, what I allowed to happen. I’ve gone loco; that’s the only explanation,
she thought wildly, fighting to ignore the tingling in her lips, the electricity that still charged through her body.

You’ve betrayed Wyatt. With this—this desperado who stole you away from everything and everyone you hold dear.

She clung to one thought: She mustn’t let Cal see the effect he’d had on her.

And dear Lord, what an effect it was. She didn’t know whom she despised more at that moment, Cal or herself.

She forced herself to move, to counteract physically the effects of Cal’s kisses. Somehow she wove her way to the old bureau, on which rested a single wax-coated iron candlestick. With one motion she yanked the candle out and spun around, raising the candlestick high over her head.

“If you try that again I’ll knock you cold,” she vowed.

Cal came easily away from the window, but instead of approaching her, as she half expected, he flopped his body across the bed and plumped a pillow up behind his shoulders.

“Wouldn’t think of it, Princess,” he assured her casually.

“You shouldn’t have thought of it before!”

“Didn’t exactly think of it.” He shrugged. He was cool. Calm. She
thought
she detected tension in the set of his shoulders, but she couldn’t be sure. “It just... happened.”

Melora ground her teeth. “It’d better never happen again!
Never,
do you hear me?”

“I think the drunks down in Hurley’s Saloon can hear you,” he commented dryly. He arranged the pillow more comfortably against his neck. How could he look so damned composed, so
tranquil
?

Thunder boomed, making Melora jump. She clutched the candlestick tighter as Cal continued in a smooth tone. “Only problem is, folks in town might think it strange for a wife to be shouting things like that at her husband. I’d lower my voice if I were you.”

“Folks might think it strange? Strange? Don’t talk to me about strange!” But Melora forced herself to lower her voice as he continued to stare at her with raised brows. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met, and this kidnapping is the strangest event of my life!” she hissed. “How long are we going to go on like this? And just what do you hope to accomplish by taking me into the Black Hills?”

“Not this again.” Cal frowned. He reached down to the floor and retrieved his hat, then plopped it over his face. “Think I’ll take a nap.”

A nap? Melora’s mouth dropped open. She stared in boiling, all-consuming rage at this cretin who had ruined her life and tricked her into—into wrong behavior, into crazed behavior. Her lips still burned from his kiss, her body would never again feel quite the same after being pressed against his, and he was going to take a nap?

Her temper snapped. “You—you disgusting, selfish, arrogant
cur
!” she shouted, and threw the candlestick across the room. It crashed into the door, then hurtled to the floor and rolled under a chair.

Cal lifted the hat off his face, regarding her in reproachful silence.

“There is no way you are going to take a nap! You’re loco if you think I’m going to let you off that easily,” she shrieked. “I said I want answers, and you’re not going to get a moment’s rest until you give them to me!”

She snatched his hat from him and threw it onto the floor, glaring defiantly into his startled eyes. Then, when he said nothing, she lost control of the last thin shreds of her temper and leaped onto the hat, stomping it into the floor with her boots as if it were a prairie fire that needed squelching.

“There,
Cal,
that’s
what I think of you
and
your hat,” Melora panted as she stamped and squashed. “And
that’s
what I think of your plan. And
that’s
what I think of—ohhh!”

Too late did she notice his green eyes narrow, making him look like a tiger about to pounce. Too late did she try to jump out of reach. With one long, sinewy arm, Cal grabbed her and yanked her down on the bed, and the next moment she was pinned beneath him, trapped by his size and weight.

“That was my best hat, Melora.”

“I don’t care. I don’t give a damn. I want answers. I want to know why I can’t go home!”

“Because I said so.”

“Who the hell cares what you say? My sister needs me. My fiancé needs me. And my ranch needs me.”

Her words tore at him. The furious, agonized expression on her face pierced him like a knife gutting through to his soul.

When he’d kidnapped her, he’d thought Melora’s father was still alive; he’d thought that Craig Deane was there, hearty and healthy to run the ranch, to take care of his family and land. He hadn’t counted on Wyatt Holden’s bride-to-be being solely responsible for it all or on there being a young sister at the Weeping Willow who was left all alone when Melora was kidnapped.

I didn’t count on a lot of things,
he realized ruefully as he studied the slenderly beautiful, very enraged woman squirming furiously beneath him. She was helpless on the mattress, caught and pinned like a mouse in the paws of a tiger, and she knew it, yet she glared up at him with that striking combination of defiance, raw nerve, and silent vulnerability that touched him more fiercely than any tears or pleas.

Cal raked a hand through his hair. He had to suppress the urge to soothe her flushed face and trembling lips with another long, sweet kiss.

Instead he suddenly shifted his weight and let her up. “Melora,” he said tensely, as she sprang up to a sitting position beside him, “you win. This time.”

He eased off the bed because to linger there any longer would invite disaster. Instead he prowled to the window, pulled the burlap aside, and stared bleakly out at the wild night.

She remained frozen where she was, panting, waiting. Listening. Alert as a huntress, her head cocked to one side.

“Your fiancé did me a bad turn some time ago,” he said at last. “A real bad turn. And I’m aiming to repay him.” He scowled at the streaming windows. Rain ran down in flowing gray rivulets. Like unending tears, he thought with a stab of bitterness.

“So I’ve set a trap, and you’re the bait. It’s not the way I’d have picked to right this wrong,” he added, spinning around to meet her gaze with a level look. “But it’s the only way I could think of. That’s all there is to it.”

Stunned, Melora could only shake her head. “Wyatt is a good man. He wouldn’t have—he couldn’t have done anything wrong.”

The cold laugh that broke from him echoed through the tiny room. “You may be a courageous woman, Princess, but you’re a hell of a poor judge of character.” Suddenly he strode over to his pack and removed a canteen.

“Whiskey,” he said shortly. “Want some?”

She shook her head, and then, for the first time since she’d met him, she saw Cal take a long swig of liquor. “You know nothing about the hombre you were going to throw your life away on. Not one damn thing. You should be thanking me, Princess, for saving you from him.”

Confusion settled over Melora like a fuzzy woolen afghan. She could picture Wyatt in her mind’s eye: tall, black-haired, handsome. Charming, smart, even-tempered Wyatt, who played with Jinx’s kittens, who bought candy for the children who stopped in at Petey’s General Store whenever he happened to be there. Wyatt always had a ready smile for everyone, he was always a gentleman—as Pop had been—and he was always prepared to offer a helping hand to anyone who needed it.

Aggie adored him, and so did Mrs. Appleby, the doctor’s wife, and all the ranchers in the valley included him in their discussions at the cattlemen’s association meetings. They respected his judgment: they listened to him and heeded his advice about the rustlers.

And he was the one who’d come up with the idea of trying to find a special doctor in the East to cure Jinx’s lameness, of sending her to an exclusive hospital where she could get the best medical treatment available.

He was not capable of doing anyone “a bad turn,” whatever that was. The whole notion was ludicrous.

“You’ve made a mistake, Cal.” She spoke calmly and steadily now, for her anger was evaporating. From the little she knew of Cal, she’d come to believe he was not the monster she had first thought when she was dragged from her home. He had shown himself to be decent and intelligent and even, occasionally, understanding. Oh, there was anger in him, Melora conceded, but not cruelty. Not one speck of meanness. He could be unexpectedly kind, unexpectedly patient.

So now it became clear. There had been a misunderstanding. Cal apparently blamed Wyatt for something that was not his fault, and the moment she could make him understand that, he would let her go.

She tried to argue her case, forcing herself to concentrate on that and not on the storm raging beyond the window. But he cut her off, shoving the whiskey canteen back into the saddle pack, glaring at her from across the dim room, while flashes of golden lightning sliced the sky outside.

“You asked me, Melora,” Cal told her coolly. “And I told you. End of discussion. I know the truth about that slimy son of a bitch. And I’m sorry, but until this little matter between him and me is settled, you’re caught right in the middle of it.”

“But, Cal—” Thunder made her jump and lose her train of thought. Before she could continue, he interrupted her.

“I’m going downstairs to get us some supper we can eat in our room.” He picked up his battered hat, shot her a frown dark as midnight, and stalked to the door. “Stay put and don’t get into any trouble until I get back. And don’t try to escape,” he added, with a meaningful glance at the storm raging outside, “or to enlist anyone’s help. You won’t find much milk of human kindness in Devil’s Creek.”

“Cal, don’t go.”

But more thunder, black and deafening as cannon fire, drowned out the desperation in her words, and he was gone without hearing them or seeing the panic in her face.

Melora jumped up off the bed. She bit her lip and tried to stay calm. But as the windowpanes rattled and shook, and rain slashed ever harder upon the roof, she began to pace the room, her hands clenched at her sides.

She refused to look outside, but the zigzag flashes of lightning danced eerily across the dimness. Every peal of thunder knotted her stomach tighter. At one point it sounded as though the roof were going to cave in upon her.

It’s only a storm,
she told herself, but her breath was now coming in short, hard gasps.
It will pass.

Her breathing grew ever more ragged as the chilling, unreasoning terror poured through her.

She ran to his pack, dug out the whiskey canteen, and took a gulp. The liquor slid like amber fire down her throat.
That’s better, much better.
Melora wiped her lips with the back of a trembling hand. She took a second gulp.

Now calm down. You don’t want Cal to see you like this, do you? Do you want him to think you’re a sniveling little coward?

She swallowed another long swig of whiskey, then took the canteen with her as she threw herself down on the bed and closed her eyes, trying frantically to close her ears to the thunder, to the rain, to the cold, whistling wind.

Cal found her huddled there when he returned. Huddled still and silent as a corpse.

* * *

“Melora?”

When he opened the door, he saw her curled up on the bed in a ball, her face turned away, and for an instant he thought she was asleep, but then he heard the sound of her breathing, quick and shallow and harsh, and he knew something was very wrong.

“Melora, what is it?” The tray clattered onto the table as he sprinted to her side and knelt beside her, fear scraping through him. “Are you sick?”