Deborah Camp (35 page)

Her eyes tearing, Elise laughed until her sides hurt. “Get out of here, you thespian!”

“Quite, quite.” He took mincing steps out of the cabin.

Blade grinned and gave Elise a wink. “He’s not the same boy who came here two weeks ago.”

“No.” She sobered quickly. “That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to leave.”

Blade’s smile was so sad it nearly broke her heart. “I don’t want to leave either, but I don’t think the judge will give us a choice.”

Where had everyone gone? Elise wondered as she finished stacking the clean supper dishes on the shelf. Listening, she heard only frogs and crickets around the cabin. She crossed to the door and looked out. Light spilled from the barn. What were they doing?

She went to the bedroom she now shared with Blade and unpinned her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders. Drawing a brush through it, she closed her eyes and willed some of the tension from her body as she gave her auburn hair a thorough grooming.

An edginess rattled through her veins and she felt as if a weight sat in her chest. She dreaded tomorrow and her meeting with the Wellbys. Resentment toward them boiled within her, and her brush strokes became too rapid, too painful. She
put the ivory-handled brush on top of the dresser and went outside, where a cool breeze stirred the tree branches and starlight showed her the way to the barn.

Happy laughter erupted from inside, enticing Elise. She crossed the threshold and stopped. Blade, Penny and Adam stood with their backs to her; the focus of their attention was Gwenie. The filly was putting on a show, prancing and kicking and tossing her short mane. Janie, the proud mother, extended her head and neck over the stable door and blew through her nostrils at her bouncing baby.

Intrigued, Elise ventured closer and saw the reason for Gwenie’s acrobatics. She was wearing a halter. The filly leapt straight up and shook her head, trying to sling off the harmless rope halter. Penny and Adam doubled over with laughter again. Blade’s low chuckle rumbled from his chest as he rested a hand on Penny’s shoulder and winked at Adam.

“You’d think that halter rope was made of barbed wire, the way she’s taking on,” Blade said.

Adam struggled to control his guffaws. “What a spoiled baby you are, Gwenie! What will you do when a saddle is placed on your back?”

“Well, that won’t be for a long spell,” Blade said. “And she won’t like that one bit either.”

Seeing them enjoy one another, share a few minutes of fun and frolic, Elise swallowed the tightness in her throat. What would happen to little Gwenie, Janie and beautiful, spirited Bob? Would they be taken over by Judge Mott, too? She couldn’t imagine anyone astride Bob other than Blade. Oh, she never tired of watching Blade ride bareback, looking every inch the Apache brave!

“Elise.” Blade had spotted her and he beckoned with one hand. “We put a halter on Gwenie and she’s throwing a fit.”

“So I see.” Elise stood on his other side and he slipped an arm around her waist. “You aren’t going to leave that on her tonight, are you? She won’t sleep a wink.”

“No, I’ll take it off in a minute. We’ll get her used to it gradual-like.”

Elise closed her eyes, unable to talk as if there were so many tomorrows here for all of them. Blade was right. Lloyd Mott would not give them more time. They had defied him by taking Adam. He had everything to gain and they had everything to lose. She opened her eyes and looked at Blade, who was smiling and chuckling at the bucking filly. How could he feel any joy when his land—his inheritance—would be stripped from him within a matter of days?

Unable to join in the laughter and on the brink of bitter tears, Elise wrenched away from Blade and started for the barn door.

“Elise, is something wrong?” Blade called after her.

“No,” she said, but her voice was too high, too strained. She cleared her throat and tried to swallow the knot of misery in it. “Penny, Adam, you two need to come in soon and get ready for bed.”

After reaching the cabin, she went directly to her bedroom and closed the door. Depression lowered itself over her like a gray mantle and she lay back on the bed with a broken sigh. After a while she heard the others come inside, but she didn’t go out to them. She couldn’t. The mantle was heavy and pinned her down. Noises drifted to her … shuffling, lowered voices, the other bedroom door closing.
She dozed and awakened to a dark room. Someone had extinguished the lamp. A shadow loomed over her and a large, familiar hand stroked her cheek.

“Are you sick?” Blade asked in a whisper.

She shook her head against his hand.

“What is it? Are you upset about the meeting tomorrow? If you want, I can go with you. Adam can finish up weeding the rows tomorrow all by himself. He’s handy to have around, that one.”

Elise curled onto her side. “The fields. Why do you even bother? Are you trying to get everything ready for Judge Mott?”

“Ah, so we have switched places.” He nudged her further onto her side of the bed and lay down with her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You are now the pessimist and I am trying to believe in miracles.”

“You shouldn’t. No miracle will save us, Blade. What will happen to Gwenie and Janie, Bob, the mules, our chickens and ducks? The new kittens and the—”

“Shhh.” He curved a hand around her shoulder and pulled her onto her back to look down into her face. “Let me worry about them. You have all you can do to think about your brother and sister.”

“You’ll let us go away? Just like that?”

“If there is no more home here, what do you expect us to do? There’s a chance you might find a home again in Baltimore with your relatives.”

“I doubt that. You don’t know them like I do, Blade. They can’t have a change of heart, because they have no hearts.”

He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Do you want me to go with you tomorrow?”

“No. Finish your work.” She started to turn onto her side again, but he kept her anchored on her back, one hand at her shoulder and the other cupping the side of her face. “I should see to Penny,” Elise said.

“She’s in bed. I tucked her in.” He kissed her lightly on her forehead and eyelids. “Let me erase these worry lines,” he murmured, and his lips touched the corners of her eyes and mouth.

“Blade, what if Judge Mott—”

“Shhh.” He hushed her again. “I’ve thought of nothing else all day. Give me something else to think about tonight, Elise. Please?”

Her depression lifted, replaced by an urgency to be swept into his arms and to drown in his kisses. She caught his hands and placed them on her breasts.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think, Blade. I just want to feel … to feel you.”

He slipped a hand under her skirt and his palm skimmed along her calf, her knee, her thigh. Elise unbuttoned her cuffs and the front of her dress, eager to have his hands on her. They stared into each other’s eyes as they busily removed their clothing, and seldom broke the connection until the tasks were completed.

The sight of Blade’s nude body always heightened her longing for him. Solid, teak-colored, big and bold, he epitomized all she loved in the male form, with the exotic addition of those faint blue lines crisscrossing his chest and arms to form triangles and circles and rectangles. She licked one that ran from nipple to nipple.

“I love your body.” She licked one of his tightening paps, then took it into her mouth. He cursed and groaned. She smiled and sucked harder.

“Sweet Giver of Life!” He grasped her head between his hands and brought her mouth to his.

She returned to his chest and her tongue painted over the lines. “These markings …” She followed another with her lips from his sternum to just above his navel. “They were part of a ritual that made you a brave man, a warrior?”

“That’s right.”

“The ritual worked.” She looked up his body to find his dark, lustrous eyes. “You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known. You are my warrior prince.”

His eyes glittered like topaz jewels as he reached for her. Clamping his hands on her shoulders, he twisted her onto her back and unleashed a series of quick, tongue-teasing kisses that left her moaning for more.

She tried not to think that their nights of love-making might end, but the thought was there, in the corner of her mind, and it drove her to near desperation. He must have been fighting the same demon, for he loved her in a half-starved way. He opened his mouth wide over hers, and his tongue imitated the sex act so keenly that she felt an answering surge and retreat between her thighs. Cupping her breasts in his hands, he brought her nipples to his mouth, each in its turn, flicking them with his tongue and nipping lightly with his teeth until she could stand no more of the wicked pleasure.

“Now, Blade, now.” Wrapping her legs around him, she reached down and caressed his long, hard length. She let the pad of her thumb tease the slippery tip, and he bucked and groaned.

Reaching up and back behind her, Elise grabbed the headboard and held on as he entered her, filled her, stretched her and created that divine friction
that sent her up and out of herself. For those blessed minutes there were no Wellbys, no Mott, no lost farms. In those minutes, she could convince herself that Blade Lonewolf loved her and would never, ever let her go.

When his own pleasure had gripped and released him, he lay on his side, one leg and arm draped over her. He breathed deeply and his skin was shiny with sweat.

Elise ran a hand through his silky hair that had grown past his shoulders in back. She started to tell him that she’d trim his hair, but the uncertainty of tomorrow flooded through her, drenching her again in melancholy.

“How can you leave me, Blade Lonewolf?” she asked.

He lifted his head, and his face reflected a deep-down sadness. “It will be you who will leave.”

“Okay. How can you send me away?”

“Because I want you to have a good life, and without this place I can’t give you that.”

“Maybe you can. Maybe we could have a good life just wandering from place to place. People do that all the time.”

He kissed the side of her breast, nuzzling her intimately and pulling her closer to him. “I can’t do that to Adam and Penny, and you can’t either. If we had only ourselves to think of …”

“But we don’t.” She struggled to stave off another wash of tears and wished she could stop turning the problems over and over in her mind.

He kissed her pouting nipple and inched upward until his lips could pluck at hers. A simmering began in her and within minutes she was
boiling again, clutching at him, writhing upon the bed while he moved down her body until he was between her thighs.

Ah, he was so very good at making her forget.

A
pproaching the hotel room to which she’d been directed by the proprietor, Elise concentrated on breathing regularly while her heart somersaulted in her chest. She’d worn her best dress, the garnet one that had become her wedding gown, and the plucky black hat that had been her bridal veil on the fateful day she had married Blade Lonewolf. She touched her mother’s brooch, pinned at her throat, for comfort and courage before knocking briskly below the painted number “3.”

She heard movement on the other side, whispered voices, and then the door opened to reveal the smiling round face of Giles Lancaster.

“Mrs. Lonewolf! How good to see you again. Please, won’t you come in? You look lovely this morning, if I may be so bold.”

“Thank you.” She swept inside, her finishing-school lessons holding her in good stead: head high, eyes flashing with confidence, spine erect, shoulders back, breeding apparent in her walk and demeanor.

The narrow entry opened into a small sitting room. A closed door to the left of the parlor gave access to the bedroom area, Elise supposed. Two
chairs and a settee were arranged in front of a bank of windows. A tea and coffee service was spread on a low table before the settee. The service was porcelain, not silver, and Elise wondered with wry amusement how her grandparents were coping. Then she noticed the other person in the room.

“Hello, Nicole,” she greeted the uniformed maid. “It’s nice to see you again.”

The middle-aged woman, who had served the Wellbys since she was a girl, curtsied. “’Lo, miss. Would you care for tea or coffee, miss?”

Elise removed her gloves and glanced at the tea tray again. “I’ll have a cup of tea with cream, if you please. No sugar. Thank you, Nicole.” She looked at the woman, noting the silver sprinkled through her dark hair and the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. “How have you been?”

Nicole glanced up nervously and shared a startled look with Giles Lancaster. “I … me, miss? I’m very good, miss.”

Elise realized she had shocked the woman with her personal inquiry. Elise St. John would not have asked, but it was a natural gesture for Elise Lonewolf. Only one of the many differences that had taken place within her, Elise thought, pleased with the woman she had become, and proud that she no longer saw maids and butlers as things instead of as people who had lives outside their service.

“How do you like Crossroads, Nicole?”

Again Nicole glanced at Mr. Lancaster, as if seeking counsel on how to handle this uncommon exchange. “It seems a nice enough place, miss.”

“Yes, it has its good points. Nicole, I’ve married since we saw each other last. I’m Mrs. Lonewolf now.”

“Oh, yes, missus. Pardon me, missus.”

Elise waved a hand and smiled. “No need to ask for a pardon from me, Nicole. I’m not the queen.” She wrinkled her nose in a teasing fashion and saw the maid’s own smile lose some of its nervousness. “You could call me Elise, but I know you wouldn’t be comfortable with that.”

“Won’t you have a seat, Mrs. Lonewolf?” Mr. Lancaster said, motioning to one of the wing chairs facing the settee. Evidently the Wellbys would occupy that.

“Yes, thank you.” Elise arranged herself in the chair, spreading her skirts just so and placing her reticule in her lap. She took the cup of tea Nicole had prepared for her. “And thank you, Nicole.”