Caden's Vow (22 page)

“Such pretty breasts you have. I always noticed them.”

“You noticed?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

That seemed to be the right thing to say. She smiled.

“Offer them to me.”

She slipped her hands beneath and lifted them, stroking her
fingers up the sides until her fingers touched his on the nipples. He took his
away. She twisted and pinched her nipples.

“That’s it, baby, make them hard for my mouth.”

She did without hesitation. He liked that instant response in
her. That willingness to experiment.

“Good girl.” He waited until she had them stretched away from
her body before ordering, “Hold it.”

She did, her body tense and quivering, anticipation in her
eyes. Holding her gaze, he lowered his head, raking his tongue across one
nipple. She moaned and her head fell back. He braced her with his hand between
her shoulder blades. She brought her feet up, driving his cock deeper. As his
lips closed around her nipple, she rose up on his cock, fucking him in short
little jabs in time with his sucking as he nibbled at her breasts.

“Christ, I’m not going to last long, Maddie.” He’d been so long
without her. “I need you, honey.”

“I need you, too. Harder.”

“You first.”

She laughed the laugh he’d always wanted to hear from her. Free
and wild and happy. “No, you.”

She rose up and down, maintaining the rhythm, making love to
him with her eyes, her body, her smile, taking the pleasure he gave and
returning it tenfold, with the grind of her hips, the squeezing of her pussy.
Fuck, her pussy. So tight and hot, so wet. He thrust up, twisting her nipples
between his fingers as his cock slid deep, parting her, stretching her. Son of a
bitch.

“Maddie!”

She answered in a high-pitched cry, her body quivering against
his. He was close. So close. “Come with me, honey. Come all over my cock, show
me how you feel.”

“Yes.”

He drove up again, grabbing her hips and fucking her harder,
deeper. Her nails raked down his chest. The pain blended with the pleasure. With
a growl he gave her more. Of his cock. Of his passion. His love.

The explosion caught him by surprise, tearing his control from
him. Her body convulsed around his, her pussy milking his cock, taking every
spurt with greedy acceptance. God, he loved that she always did that, took
whatever he gave her as a gift. And there in the midst of his orgasm, he
realized what she’d been trying to tell him all along.

“Fuck!”

“Good fuck or bad fuck?” she asked a few minutes later, her
arms around his neck, her face buried in his throat, her body still quivering
and spasming around his.

“Good for you, bad for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I finally understood what you’ve been trying to tell me,
Maddie.”

“In the middle of making love, you understand?”

“I’m funny that way.”

Digging his fingers into her hair, he tilted her head back,
studying her face, memorizing it for the time to come. Leaning down, he kissed
her lips, not with passion but with love, because God help him, he did love her,
and while it went against everything he believed in, he was going to give her
what she needed.

“You pick a hell of a way to tell me to go, honey.”

Resting her cheek on his chest, she sighed. “I didn’t start
it.”

“But you sure finished it.”

He ground his hips up into hers. She moaned, he moaned.

She smiled and stroked her fingertips down his cheek. “We both
did.”

“As a reward, I’m going to give you what you want.”

The terror in her gaze hurt him, but not nearly as much as the
relief.

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I said. You want me gone, I’m going to go. But—”
he stood “—wrap your legs around my waist.”

She did.

“Not until tomorrow.”

He turned and realized there wasn’t anyplace to go.

“And on one condition.”

“What?”

“You get a bed for those times I come back.”

“I don’t understand.”

He laid her down on the couch, coming down above her, sliding
his hardening cock deep into her pussy, watching her eyes close and her
expression melt at the pleasure.

“We’re going to do it your way, Maddie. You’re going to stay
here and find out who you are, and I’m going to work the mine, but I’m going to
come back. Don’t you ever think I won’t. I’m not leaving you. I’m going to come
back, not because you’re my wife, but because I need you, plain and simple. And
we’ll make love and we’ll talk and we’ll go to socials and we’ll get to know
each other, and when you’re ready, you’ll tell me what I want to hear.”

“And what is that?”

“You’ll know it when you say it.”

“I do love you.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I want to hear.”

“Caden.” He could see her panicking. He caught her hands in his
and brought them to his mouth.

“You’re right, Maddie. You need this time to discover who you
are, to find out what you want, because truth be told, I don’t want you unless
you’re sure, too. But I’m not divorcing you and I’m not abandoning you. We’ll do
this like adults.”

“You’re going to live here?”

“I can live anywhere, Maddie. What I can’t do, what I don’t
want to do, is live without you.”

She opened her mouth, but he put his finger over her lips. “I
don’t want to hear lies, honey. So when you know it, just give me the
truth.”

* * *

C
ADEN
WAS
AS
GOOD
AS
his word. The next morning, exhausted, her body pleasantly sore from lovemaking,
her heart lodged in her throat, Maddie watched Caden leave. He rode out of her
life the way he rode in. A confident, powerful man as rugged and wild as the
land. A man who loved her. And she’d sent him away. Dear God, maybe she really
was crazy. She wanted to run after him and tell him to come back, but there was
no going back. No closing the door she’d opened. Not without the knowing.
Neither could be satisfied with less. Caden rode out of sight, leaving the
street as empty as her heart. At her feet, Precious meowed. Maddie picked her
up.

A chill went up her spine. She looked around. There was
nothing.

“I truly must be crazy.” So crazy she thought someone was
watching her. So crazy she was letting Caden ride away. But as terrified as she
was, as desolate as she felt watching Caden ride away, she hadn’t chased after
him, and maybe that was more significant than the fear she was feeling now. She
clung to the doorjamb.

I won’t abandon you, Maddie.

She hoped he wouldn’t. There was so much she needed to figure
out. She wanted it done yesterday, but it seemed determined to come at its own
time.

Time.

“Oh, my God.”

She darted back inside to take the first batch of cinnamon
rolls out of the oven. Across the street she could see her first line of
customers wandering over, some with coffee cups in their hands, getting ready
for the first stop in their day. The satisfaction she felt replaced some of her
panic. And she knew without a doubt she’d made the right decision.
They’d
made the right decision.

She took the rolls out of the oven and set the tray on the
table. Whipping the glaze to a thick, creamy consistency, she drizzled it over
them. She needed this. And she needed Caden. Somehow she needed to be good with
both. It shouldn’t be this hard, but it was. Fear churned in her stomach. She
fought it back with slow, even breaths. She had to figure out what she was
afraid of.

* * *

A
WEEK
LATER
A
KNOCK
at the door caught her by
surprise. She wasn’t expecting anyone, especially this late in the evening. She
looked up to see a familiar woman standing in the doorway.

“Lucia! What brings you out this late?”

“Bread, what else?” She was dressed in a crisp white shirt and
a blue walking dress. In her hand she held a pair of pale blue gloves. With a
smile, she motioned to the kitchen. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

The older woman came in and looked around the kitchen.

“You’re very efficient at what you do,” she said, the
appreciation clear in her tone.

“Thank you.”

“We’ll need three more loaves of bread for tomorrow. There’s a
fresh crop of miners that came in last night, and without the extra, we’re going
to come up short. Can you do that?”

Maddie did a quick calculation. She didn’t owe the cinnamon
rolls to the mercantile anymore, so if she didn’t bake those, she could add the
bread. There’d be a little less profit, but Lucia was a good customer and she’d
given her her first break, her first opportunity.

“Yes, I can do that.”

Lucia turned to leave and then stopped. The way she fiddled
with the gloves clearly indicated she had something on her mind. “I saw your man
leave.”

Maddie nodded, but didn’t offer anything further. How to
explain her situation?

“He goes away often?”

“He will be gone for a while this time.”

“You’ve been fighting.”

It was a statement. Maddie shook her head. “No, it’s
just...it’s just something I need.”

The older woman smoothed her hair. She picked up one of the
cinnamon buns.

“May I?”

Maddie nodded.

She delicately pinched off a piece and put it to her mouth.

“It’s easy when you’re married to forget things.”

“Like what?”

“Do you have a mother, Maddie?”

She shook her head. “She...died.”

“She never spoke to you of marriage and what to expect?”

Maddie shook her head and blushed. Oh, dear God, this woman
wasn’t going to talk to her about sex, was she?

“I’m not...afraid of my husband.”

It was Lucia’s turn to blush. She pulled off another piece of
bun and quickly put it in her mouth, chewing it thoroughly before she responded.
She was clearly choosing her words carefully.

“I don’t mean between the sheets. But what happens between a
man and a wife out of bed. I’ve watched you, Maddie, and you have something to
prove. I remember when I first married Antonio, there was so much that was
suddenly ‘us’ I felt like I was losing who I was.”

“I can’t lose what I don’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up differently, without a family. I was never allowed
to make any decisions.”

“But this is normal for young girls.”

“It was extreme in my case, and if I don’t know who I am
outside my marriage, how can I know who I am inside it?”

“Ah, I suspected this was the case. It’s easy to forget, when
you worry about losing yourself, in a marriage that which you gain.” Lucia took
another step forward and patted Maddie’s cheek and smiled gently.

“You don’t lose yourself in a marriage, Maddie. You gain your
other half.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

S
HE
GAINED
HER
better half.

Maddie was so absorbed in the concept that it took a good ten
minutes after Lucia said good-night for her to recognize that uncomfortable,
clammy feeling was creeping over her skin again. As if eyes were upon her.
Secret eyes. Evil eyes. She hadn’t felt them at all when Caden was here, but as
soon as he was gone, it was back. She needed to get control.

Feeling stupid, she yanked the kitchen curtains closed.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, she waited. The feeling didn’t go away.
Darn it, she didn’t have time for this. The last of the dishes needed doing. And
her bed needed making. Both the front and back doors were open to let in the
air. She could close the front, but the back had to stay open until the oven
cooled down; otherwise she’d roast.

Licking her lips, she wiped her hands on her apron and quickly
closed the front door and turned the lock. She stepped back and she wondered at
the futility of her actions. The lock wasn’t even as strong as the ones that had
been on the whorehouse’s door. Of course, those were meant to keep girls
in,
but studying her front door, the lock didn’t look
strong enough to keep a mouse out.

Maddie shook her head at her foolishness and unlocked the door,
forcing herself to take a step outside and look around. She was her own woman,
dependent on no one. There was nothing unusual, just the peaceful goings-on in
the street past the alley, her cat chasing a bug in the patch of grass just off
the front step. It was a calm summer night and she was being foolish. Besides,
Lucia had just left and she would have said something if she’d seen anyone
lurking about.

Shaking her head again, Maddie stepped back into the house,
closed the door, debated a second and then threw the lock. If she was her own
woman, she shouldn’t be ashamed to lock the damn door if she wanted to.

She took a step back toward the kitchen, her eyes locked on the
door. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. On the next step she bumped into
something that shouldn’t have been there, some
one
who shouldn’t have been there. Her scream was cut off by a hand over her mouth,
her struggles ended by a knife against her throat.

She closed her eyes. Not so foolish after all. It was little
comfort.

“Hello, Maddie.”

It took her a minute to place the voice. Dickens. As he dragged
her back into the kitchen, the heat from the oven hit her hard, wrapping around
her body, bringing the acrid scent of her own fear to her nostrils. On the next
breath, she drowned in the stench of his, only he wasn’t afraid. He smelled of
hate and sweat.

“I came to collect what’s owed me.”

Insanity. Dickens. He was Frank’s man.

“Did Frank send you?”

“Culbart and I parted company.”

“He fired you.” It was a shot in the dark that hit home.

He yanked her back, shifting his grip to her mouth. “Over you,
you fucking bitch. We’ll add that to your tab.”

There was only one thing he could think she owed him. He
turned, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw he closed the back door and
locked it. Wild laughter rose as she realized instead of keeping the danger out,
she’d locked the danger in with her.

Sweat popped out over her body, at her temples, dripping down
her cheeks. Fear constricted her lungs. She opened her mouth, trying to suck in
a breath, but his hand smothered the effort. His thumb pressed up under her
nostrils, restricting how much air she could even inhale. Despite the knife, she
had no choice; she had to struggle and she felt the sting of the cut and blood
drip to join the sweat.

He changed the angle of the knife and pointed the tip up under
her chin.

She held still, terror building on terror.

“Good girl.”

She wanted to kick him in the balls.

“I’m going to let go of you,” he told her, “but if you think I
can’t throw this knife faster than you can scream, you just give it a shot.”

She believed him. When he took his hand from her mouth in a
quick, efficient movement, she didn’t move, just stood there staring at him as
he stepped around in front of her. Light from the lamp caught on the blade.

She brought her hand up to her throat. The cut was a small gap
in her skin, but it was too easy to think of it being so much bigger. She stared
at his knife. That was her blood on the blade. She’d been close to death before,
but it had never felt this real.

You gain your other half.

Lucia’s words came back to her. She was just beginning to
figure things out and now she might be losing everything.

“Why are you here?” Her voice was a dry rasp of sound choking
off in the middle.

Dickens smiled and took his hat off and set it on the back of
the chair.

“You owe me. Back at the house, you tricked the boss man into
taking you off the table, but I’ve had a hard-on for you ever since. Dancing
around, acting like you’re better than the rest of us. Just a split tail that
belongs on her back, and I want what you stole from me.” He motioned with the
knife. “My time between your thighs to start.”

“You want to make love.”

“I don’t make love with whores.”

She knew that. And it should be easy to give him what he
wanted, to unbutton her dress, shrug out of it, to lie on the bed, spread her
legs and go to that place where everything was good and he didn’t exist.

“I think I’d rather die first.”

“That’s a bit dramatic even for a whore.”

“I think this is a bit dramatic for a cowhand.” She motioned
with her hand, indicating his knife, the room, the situation.

“Well—” he took a step forward, unbuckling his gun belt “—if I
were just a cowhand, maybe it would be, but I have plans, big plans, and you
weren’t supposed to leave before I got them going.”

“All this because you want to have sex with me?”

She thought of the weeks where she’d felt someone’s eyes upon
her. He had to have been stalking her from the beginning, following her,
watching her, studying her. It made her skin crawl.

“Have you been watching me?”

“Yes.”

The buckle came undone. He placed the gun belt over the chair.
A little leap of excitement inside as she realized how close the weapons were.
She licked her lips. Just an arm’s length away.

“Are you crazy?”

“Nope.”

He said that so calmly she was convinced he was. Only crazy
people denied it in a flat tone like that, as if they’d long accepted what was
inside them so much so that it was normal.

Only crazy people that lived with themselves long enough to
feel that it was normal said no in a voice like that.

She took a step back.

“That’s a step in the right direction.”

And she realized he was looking at the big bed Caden had
bought. She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t lie with him there.

His hand in the middle of her chest sent her spinning back. She
caught the bedpost to stop herself from falling.

“Get out of those clothes and on that bed.”

“You don’t want to do this,” she told him.

“The hell I don’t. I told you I’ve had a hard-on for you since
the first time I saw you.”

“Caden will kill you.”

“Caden ain’t gonna do shit.” He waved the knife. “Get out of
those clothes.”

He was fumbling with the buttons of his pants. She tried, she
really tried. She’d been in situations like this before and a man’s tensions
eased once he reached his release—sometimes they had to beat you a bit before
they left, but they always let their guard down once they came. It was almost
like a game.

The light caught on the drop of blood bright on the blade.
Her
blood. She looked into his eyes. And her
stomach sank. Dickens wasn’t playing.

She dug her fingers into the bed coverings. Her eyes stuck on
that knife, her mind whirling. There had to be something she could do. Some way
to distract him. She had to keep him talking. “You said there was something
else.”

“I want the gold, Maddie.”

Oh, dear God. She didn’t have any gold.

“I don’t have any gold.”

“Your husband does and I want to know where it is.”

“What makes you think he told me? I’m a whore.”

“The man rode into the Fallen C for you. That means you meant
something to him. A man tells things to a woman that matters.”

“Maybe some men...”

He grunted a deep sound that could have meant anything.

She looked around the room for a weapon. There was nothing. The
tiny oil lamp on the stand wouldn’t even make a dent in Dickens’s skull. She had
no way to defend herself.

“Take off that dress.”

She touched her throat, slid her fingers down the V to the next
button. He licked his lips the way she’d seen a man do, full of greed and lust.
His eyes narrowed. It should be so easy to unbutton those buttons, expose her
breasts, lift them up in an offering bound to distract him. She’d done it so
many times, for so many men. This was just one more time. But she couldn’t work
the button, and the rage that swelled inside all but choked out the fear.
Clutching the material in her fist, she spat, “Go to hell.”

He didn’t even bat an eye. “I’m sure we’ll both get there
eventually.”

He took a step forward, the knife in his hand pointed up. She
pressed back against the bed. He smiled and pressed the blade flat against her
stomach.

She gritted her teeth. “Fuck you.”

“That is the plan.”

She closed her eyes, biting back a sob. Words were the only
weapon she had, and the ones she was throwing sounded more like jokes than
threats. But since she couldn’t come up with anything else to say, she clung to
her defiance. She wasn’t a whore. She was Caden Miller’s wife. If she died, she
would die an honorable woman.

Whatever you had to do to survive, that’s
just what you had to do.

Maybe back then that was true. But not now. She wasn’t doing
this. She took a step to the side. Dickens blocked her by taking a step of his
own. The knife tip slid up the front of her dress.

“Get on with it.”

She shook her head. “If you want me naked, you’re going to have
to make it happen yourself.”

“Putting on airs now that you’re married?”

“No.” She was being who she was. Finally.

He reached out. She slapped his hand away, getting a small
glimmer of satisfaction when he looked shocked. Her satisfaction was
short-lived. He backhanded her across the face. Stars exploded behind her
eyelids. She went tumbling backward onto the bed, right where he wanted her.

She waited for him to come down over her. They always came down
over her, thinking they’d won once they had her on her back.

He laughed and climbed up over her.

“Nothing worse than an uppity whore.”

And there was nothing worse than a man who thought being male
entitled him to everything. Lashing out, she sank her nails into his face, going
for his eyes, ripping down his cheeks. She wanted him to holler and scream, like
she was, to maybe alert somebody, anybody, that she was here and that she was in
trouble, but all he did was grunt and grab her wrist in one of his hands,
blocking the other with his elbow as he pressed his forearm across her
throat.

Instinct told her to grab his hand, but she’d been choked
before. Her strength was nothing against his. Her only defense was to keep
striking at his soft spots. His eyes, his balls, his throat. Opening her eyes,
fighting the urge to gasp for air, she lashed out again at his face with her
free arm, this time striking with her thumbs for his eyes. She grazed one, not
the direct hit she wanted, but it was enough.

He jerked back and released his hold on her. She rolled to the
middle of the bed. He lunged after her. She jumped for the floor but he caught
her skirts just as she launched. He yanked her back. Anchored by her skirts, she
fell face-first over the foot of the bed, smashing her hands into the floor and
upending the bed stand. The oil lamp shattered into shards around her fingers.
Maddie watched the oil spread over her clean floor as she dangled there,
wheezing for breath and managing, finally, to drag past her terror, in one, two,
three breaths. The fourth she let out in a scream she hoped was loud enough to
wake the dead.

Somebody had to hear her. And if they heard her, someone had to
care. She was Maddie Miller. Baker, wife. She was
someone.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Dickens grabbed her hair and hauled her back up, clamping his
hand over her mouth. Her back arched. It was an impossible position, a
defenseless position. In the next instant she was flipped over, and once again
she was on her back on the bed. The bed Caden had sent. The bed they were going
to make love in. Her marriage bed. Dickens wasn’t going to take her on her
marriage bed. She’d die first.

Opening her mouth, she sucked in a breath to launch another
scream.

“Oh, no, you don’t.”

His hand closed around her throat like a vise, clamping the
sound within. Her face heated and her eyes bulged, but he didn’t loosen his
grip. “You keep doing that and I’ll fuck you as you suffocate.”

He meant it.
Caden.
She screamed
his name in her mind. She’d sent him away to find herself and he’d gone, giving
her what she’d needed. Oh, God, she’d been so selfish, thinking she couldn’t be
herself with him. Sending him away. Hurting him.

Caden.

Another prayer couched in a silent scream. She didn’t want to
think of him finding her like this. From a distance she heard hollow gasps. Pain
in her shoulder and the back of her neck savaged her control. There was the
sound of cloth tearing. So much distraction, but she reached for the image of
her pond in her mind. The image wouldn’t form, so she reached for something
stronger and found...Caden. Feature by feature she built his face in her mind,
from his beautiful eyes to that lower lip she loved to nibble on.