Daisies In The Wind (23 page)

Now Rebeccah lowered the empty wineglass and
stared at him for a long moment. “How did you know my name?”

Chance Navarro set his glass down on the
refreshment table and put both of his hands on her shoulders. He
turned her around toward the sea of people watching the fiddlers
and the dancing. “That lady there ... in the blue dress?”

“Mrs. Brady,” Rebeccah murmured, half to
herself.

“Well, Mrs. Brady said to Mr. Brady the
moment you and that big fellow walked in the door: ‘Caitlin told me
Miss Rawlings wasn’t coming to the dance tonight, and here she is
with Waylon Pritchard. I’m sure glad she changed her mind, aren’t
you?’ And Mr. Pritchard said ...”

“Do you always eavesdrop on other people’s
conversations?” Rebeccah demanded, her eyes narrowing as she
inspected his wickedly smiling face.

“Only when they’re discussing the most
beautiful lady in the Territory.”

“You’re a flatterer, Mr. Navarro.”

“No, I’m a gambler, Miss Rawlings. And
tonight I’m gambling everything on making you fall in love with me,
ma’am.”

“Now, why would you want to do that?”
Rebeccah found herself smiling in spite of herself. Chance Navarro
had charm, looks, and ... something else. A happy-go-lucky,
mischievous, carefree air that intrigued her. She turned her head
slightly as he gave his lighthearted reply and pretended to watch
the dancers, but her gaze was really observing the cluster of
bright-gowned women fluttering around Sheriff Wolf Bodine.

They were gathered behind a group of chairs
where some onlookers sat holding glasses of lemonade or cups of
coffee. Nel Westerly, charmingly attired in a pink-sprigged gown
and pink kid slippers, with pink and white ribbons fetchingly
arranged in her pale upswept hair, laughed the loudest. Rebeccah
didn’t know the others, but guessed that the slim, auburn-haired
woman in the sea-green muslin might be Lorelie Simpson. It was bad
enough that two women fawned over him, but four? Rebeccah had no
idea who they all were, but Wolf Bodine looked positively
surrounded by adoring feminine faces and trills of enthusiastic
laughter. So much for mourning his dead wife. The man looked as
calmly content, at ease, and good-spirited as she had ever seen
him. His blue shirt fit snugly over his broad shoulders and wide
chest, accentuating the corded muscles and revealing, just beneath
the throat, a thatch of dark, curly chest hair. Dark trousers
encased his strong, powerful legs and were tucked into handsomely
polished boots. He had hung his hat on a hook near the schoolroom
door and was bare-headed, showing off the neatly combed locks of
silky chestnut hair. And even from this distance Rebeccah could see
the dusk-gray glint of his eyes as he regarded first one of those
fawning women and then another, his glance moving easily around the
attentive group. And then he saw her.

Their gazes locked, and held. The keen gray
eyes sharpened. He said something to the women, and they parted to
let him pass.

He was coming toward her. “Let’s dance,” she
said breathlessly to Chance Navarro, and seized his hand.

“My pleasure, ma’am,” he responded gaily, and
let himself be dragged onto the floor.

From the corner of her eyes Rebeccah saw Wolf
stop dead and scowl. She pasted a sunshine-brilliant smile on her
face and directed every dazzling ray of it at Chance. He whirled
her faster, held her tighter, and laughed at her delighted gasp.
Then Rebeccah let the music and the wine and the dizzying motion
swallow her up so that she noticed nothing but her own feet flying
across the floorboards and the giddy sensation of light-headedness,
induced, she told herself, by having such a great deal of fun.

Wolf watched her dance in the stranger’s
arms. She looked so damned happy. She never looked like that when
she was with him.

Gloom settled over him. For a woman who was
always stumbling over buckets or falling out of wagons, she danced
like the most graceful creature on earth. And what was worse, he’d
never seen her look more beautiful. Whether it was the luscious
peach color of her gown or the way her cheeks were flushed a
radiant pink or the way her eyes sparkled like sunlit pansies in
the bright lantern light, Rebeccah Rawlings outshone every other
woman here.

He waited until the country reel was over and
then he strode toward her again. She was still talking to that
damned stranger, the one who’d sat in the back at the town meeting.
Chance Navarro, that was his name. He was a gambler, Wolf had
learned from Molly. One with plenty of money and a barrelful of
nerve.

Wolf kept his gaze fixed on Rebeccah as he
advanced straight toward her. She was thirstily drinking a glass of
wine. But before he could reach her, Waylon Pritchard suddenly
appeared at her side and led her onto the dance floor.

Wolf froze in his tracks. “Son of a
bitch!”

“I beg your pardon?” Lorelie Simpson came out
of nowhere and laid a slender hand upon his sleeve. As he glanced
distractedly down at her, she slanted him a winsome smile. “It
looks like you’re on your way to the refreshment table. Mind if I
join you? I haven’t had a chance to taste Caitlin’s strawberry pie
yet, and everyone knows it’s the best in the Territory.”

“It is. Reckon you’ll enjoy it. But if you’ll
excuse me, Lorelie, there’s something important I have to do.”

Wolf vaguely heard her disappointed sigh as
he stalked away, but he immediately forgot all about her. Bearing
down on Waylon and Rebeccah pathetically trying to waltz, he caught
Rebeccah’s eye. She at once averted her gaze and fixed it upon
Waylon’s broad face as Wolf closed in on them.

“And Ma and Pa probably won’t speak to me for
days, but I don’t care because Coral says I’m the only man she ever
wants to marry, and I owe it all to you, Miss Rawlings ... What ...
Oh, Sheriff ...”

“Mind if I cut in, Waylon?”

Wolf didn’t even spare a glance at Pritchard,
however; he was staring determinedly at the slender dark-haired
vixen with the sweetest mouth he’d ever tasted. Without bothering
to listen for the other man’s reply, he seized Rebeccah in his
arms. The music blared as he swung her out among the throng of
dancers.

Rebeccah felt light as a daisy. Wolf’s arm
was so tight and hard around her waist, it seemed as if all the
breath was squeezed right out of her.

“I thought you weren’t coming to the dance,
Miss Rawlings.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,
Sheriff.”

“Wolf.”

She tilted her head to one side as if
baffled. “I’m not certain we know each other well enough to go by
given names, Sher—”

He stepped on her toe. On purpose, she was
certain.

“Ouch!” Violet fire shot from her eyes.

Wolf drew her even nearer against him,
holding her so tightly, she thought her ribs would crack. Yet his
nearness was warmly delicious, and the hardness of his body
crushing against hers caused tingles from her shoulder blades to
the delicate arches of her kid-slippered feet.

“You had no trouble calling me by my given
name the other night,” he reminded her, his breath rustling against
her cheek. The cool gleam in his eyes was at odds with the vibrant
warmth of his body. “In your kitchen. Before Billy walked in.”

“I don’t recall.”

“Liar. Do you remember the night I drove you
home from supper?”

“The night you walked out just as Caitlin was
about to serve the meal? Oh, yes, I remember that.”

Wolf’s eyes darkened to opaque charcoals.
“That’s not the part I’m talking about, Rebeccah. As you know damn
well.”

“Some things are best left forgotten,” she
replied tartly. But she was having difficulty keeping up the
conversation and reminding herself not to simply melt against him.
His nearness, the soap and spice and leather scent of his skin, the
sexual heat of his glance, were all having an effect on her senses.
She had dreamed of dancing with Wolf Bodine, she had imagined it
while gazing into campfires and while peering out the window of
Miss Wright’s Academy at the wishing star. Now here she was, warm
and flushed and dizzy from wine, with the most virilely handsome
man she’d ever met waltzing her around a crowded room, and she had
to fight the hazardous impulse to clasp her arms around his neck
and brazenly kiss him, here in front of everyone.

Imagine Myrtle Lee Anderson’s face. And Mayor
Duke’s. And Waylon Pritchard’s.

She giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Everything.” A peal of laughter
broke from her, and Wolf studied her closely.

“You’re drunk, Rebeccah.”

Still laughing, she shook her head. Then she
blinked as the room swam. Colors ran crazily one into the
other.

“I’m ... dizzy,” she whispered in surprise.
Putting a hand to her head, she closed her eyes.

He stopped dancing and tugged her toward the
door, adroitly steering past the people gathered in bunches, many
of whom called out greetings. He pulled her out into the cool mist
of the night and around the corner of the schoolhouse, where there
were no windows or doors, only an old tree stump set in the midst
of the buffalo grass.

“Sit down. Breathe.”

He stood over her as she perched on the tree
stump and obediently took great gulps of air. “Better?”

For answer she giggled. “Bear used to say
that no one could get drunk by drinking wine. It had to be whiskey
or bourbon or Tarantula Juice ... but not wine. Well, he must’ve
been wrong, because I only had two glasses of huckleberry wine and
I’m ridiculously drunk and—”

“Haven’t you ever had wine before,
Rebeccah?”

She gave a peal of laughter and then
hiccupped and giggled again. “No. We weren’t allowed spirits at
Miss Wright’s Academy for Young Ladies. Miss Wright wouldn’t have
heard of it, and Miss Althea—that’s the vice principal—wouldn’t
have heard of it, and Miss Youngston—that’s the headmistress—she
wouldn’t have heard of it, and—”

“I get the picture.”

She peeped up at him, and a dreamy smile came
over her face.

“Oh,
Wolf
,” she murmured with a
great, gusty, longing sigh.

He regarded her suspiciously. “What?”

“Nothing. Just
Wolf
.” There was a
beatific glow in her eyes. “Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed
of dancing with you? Millions. Millions and millions. And do you
know how many times I’ve positively ached to hear you say, ‘Miss
Rawlings, may I have the infinite pleasure of kissing you’?” She
lifted beseeching eyes to his startled face. “Oh, come here and
give me one little teensy kiss,” she begged.

He was looking at her as if she’d gone loco.
Which she had. My, being drunk felt so strange. And yet, it was
rather pleasant—foggy and silly and pleasant. And here she was with
Wolf, and he looked so handsome, she just couldn’t resist him
anymore, and she held out her arms and surged to her feet. And
would have fallen, but he grabbed her up like he always did and
held her close. His arms were supporting her because her knees had
buckled like paper, and he wore the most adorable worried
expression on his face. Rebeccah gazed blissfully into his
eyes.

“One kiss,” she pleaded. “Come on, Mr. Lawman
Bodine, one teensy kiss right here,” and she pointed to her full,
pouting lips.

“You’re more than drunk, you’re rip-roaring
drunk,” he accused her ruefully, but his eyes were warm with
laughter. “Who would ever expect to see the stiff-necked Miss
Rebeccah Rawlings in such condition,” he mused, one hand sliding up
to grip her delicate nape as she tilted her head back to stare at
him. “I could take advantage of you right now, Rebeccah,” he
continued softly as her eyes rested earnestly, longingly on his
face. “Did you really dream about dancing with me? Since when?”

“Since that time in the cabin when you found
me hiding under the cot. I’ve thought and thought about you ... oh,
a thousand times. Wolf, don’t you
want
to kiss me? At
first I thought you did and then I thought you didn’t and now I
think you do, but perhaps you don’t—and if you want to, you can,
but if you don’t want to, I’m going to die, and if you want
to—”

He kissed her. Just to shut her up. He felt
her soft, delicious mouth pulse to life beneath his, and his arms
swept around her, hauling her up against him. He kissed her hard,
to quieten her. She kissed him back. Clingingly. Her breasts were
crushed against his chest, he could feel the soft, full mounds
burning through the fabric of his shirt. He kissed her again, his
mouth plundering hers, thinking he would shock her and snap her out
of this giddy mood, but she only gave a whimper of pleasure and
snuggled closer against him. Her fingers slid gentle as feathers
through his hair.

“Oh, God, Rebeccah,” he groaned, and then he
was lowering her to the ground beside the tree stump, lying with
her in the crisp gold-brown buffalo grass, and her hair was somehow
unpinned from its ladylike chignon and fanned about her on the
earth, and her moist, bright lips were parted, inviting him, and
her arms stretched out to gather him close, and only then did Wolf
remember that she was not herself.

“I can’t ... do this,” he muttered in a
tortured rasp, and pulled back even as Rebeccah tugged him
close.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes filled with tears.
Beautiful crystal tears that glistened in the night. “Oh, Wolf, you
do hate me, don’t you? I thought you did, and then I thought you
didn’t, and then I thought that, well, maybe you did, but I hoped
you didn’t, and I knew that I didn’t hate you, even though I might
have
said
I did, or maybe I just
pretended
that I
did, but that’s because I thought you did ... and ...”

“Oh, hell,” Wolf crushed his mouth to hers.
She tasted like wine and honey and sweet, summer flowers. He wanted
to drown himself in her taste, her scent, her softness. At last he
dragged himself away with an effort, every muscle in his body
straining, “Rebeccah, will you shut up? If you remember any of
this, you’re going to hate yourself tomorrow morning. And I think
too highly of you to go ahead and take advantage of your ...
condition, but it sure isn’t easy to resist you, not ever, and
especially when you’re ... like this. But I’ll be damned if I’m
going to just sit here and listen to you babble on about a pack of
nonsense.”