Diamond Spur (32 page)

It began tenderly, but their hungers had gone unfulfilled too long. In no time, her arms were clinging around his neck and his mouth was grinding hers against her teeth, its feverish pressure arching her neck. His hard chest was crushing her back against the seat.

"Jason," she whispered brokenly, trying to get closer.

He murmured something rough, fighting her out of her seat and across him, her head against his window, his mouth still possessing her lips. His lean hand glided under her shirt, fighting a front catch that must have been invented by a ninety-year-old virgin.

"Help me," he groaned, his big hand all too big for such a dainty fastening.

She could barely find enough breath to laugh because he sounded as desperate as she felt. She helped him, and watched his face as he peeled the lacy covering away. He was watching her eyes, not her body. Her shirt wasn't even unfastened. His fingers traced only the outside edge of the soft satin mound, just lightly touching, and she gasped.

"You were always mine the minute I touched you," he said roughly, searching her wide, darkening green eyes. "You never held back from me, or played games, or pretended to be shocked at my hands on your body."

"I was innocent," she reminded him. "It was all new and exciting."

He bent, brushing his mouth tenderly over her eyes to close them while his hand drove her slowly mad with its lazy teasing. "It still is," he whispered. "Oh, no you don't, Mrs. Donavan," he added unexpectedly when her fingers went instantly to his shirt buttons. "This is my party, I'll call the shots."

Her eyes opened, questioning. His hand moved and she gasped involuntarily as it teased closer and closer toward a hardening tip. ' 'Jason...!"

"I like being in control, didn't I ever tell you?" He smiled as he bent toward her, his lips smoothing lazily over her mouth. Her body was beginning to tremble. Second by second, she was twisting, just barely moving, trying to trap that hand where she wanted it most. He knew that, and it delighted him, but he wasn't going to give her what she wanted. Not yet. His mouth pressed her lips open and he kissed her with a deep, slow pressure that made her moan.

Finally, his teasing touch reached the hard aching center of her, and he touched it, lifting his head to watch her face at the instant he did it. She actually shuddered, and a tiny cry pulsed out of her throat. She looked incredibly sexy that way. He covered her with his warm, callused hand and she buried her face, embarrassed, against his shirt.

"My God, there can't be another woman like you in all the world," he whispered at her ear. He caressed her tenderly, his lips on her eyelids, her nose, her flushed cheeks, her trembling mouth. "I want you, baby doll. I want you badly, can you tell?" he whispered against her lips, and gathered her hips into his.

She flushed red, astonished that even marriage and a pregnancy hadn't acclimated her to this

kind of masculine teasing. "Yes," she managed, "I can tell."

"And do you know what I'm going to do about it, Kate?"

She let her cheek slide against the warm, hard shudder of his chest, hearing his wild heartbeat.

Then she lifted her head to meet his black, glittering eyes. "No, what?" she whispered,

excitement bearing down on her.

He bent and brushed his lips against hers. "Absolutely nothing." He moved his hand and put her back in her seat, gently but firmly. Then he picked up his cigarette pack from the dash, shook one out, lit it with faintly unsteady hands, and started the Bronco.

Kate felt as if she'd been dropped from a great height and had just hit the ground. Her wide eyes stared at him with slowly dawning comprehension while her body trembled and her breath came like a runner's.

"See how that ties in with your theory that I only seduced you out of desire," he invited with twinkling eyes, and turned the Bronco back onto the rutted path with a touch of the accelerator.

For the rest of the morning, he was friendly and attentive, and she sat on the chrome-plated running board of the Bronco and watched him use the complicated wire stretcher to put two strands of barbed wire back in place. Muscles rippled under the sheepskin jacket he'd left open, and her eyes watched his lean, sure hands with memories lying soft and vulnerable in them.

"That does it," he sighed when he was done, tossing the wire stretcher into the back, where the seats had been let down to make more storage room. "God, that's work."

She watched him flex his shoulders, admiring the very set of them. "I know it is," she replied. "I tried it once, and almost ripped my arm off." She laughed. "Dad yelled at me and then he hit me, and then he hugged me."

"Which is probably what I'd do, except for the hitting part," he added, tilting his hat back to stare down into her eyes. "I'd never hurt you deliberately. Not even if I was stoned to the back teeth."

She smiled softly. "I know that." She lowered her eyes to his open jacket. "There was still a full glass of whiskey sitting on the table in the living room last night," she remarked. "Untouched."

He stripped off his gloves slowly. It was hard to talk about, but after what he'd done to her, she deserved the truth. "I'm not going down the road my father did," he said then. ' 'No matter what comes, from now on, I'm going to face it without crutches."

She looked up, shocked. "Jason, you've got it all out of perspective," she said softly. "An occasional drink isn't a crutch."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe it was only an occasional one with him, at the beginning."

She went close to him, and she had to lean her head back a long way to see his face. He towered over her. "You won't ever become an alcoholic," she put it bluntly. "Because as long as I'm alive, as long as we live together, I'll make sure of it. I'll take care of you."

"I've given you hell," he breathed.

"Yes," she admitted. She searched his hard face, seeing now the avalanche of emotion under that taut look. Someday, perhaps he'd trust her enough to show her all those violent feelings he was still afraid to reveal. "All your friends get that special treatment," she added with her tongue in her cheek.

He relaxed into laughter, tapping her on the cheek with a hard finger. "Shut up. Let's go home. I've got to talk to Sheila about getting everything ready for the production sale next Saturday."

"Can't I help?" she asked. He hesitated and she grinned. "I know I don't have a very good track

record, but that was at formal dinners. A production sale means a barbecue and country people.

And those," she added wickedly, "I know very well."

"I hate formal dinners," he said unexpectedly. "You needn't look so shocked," he added, "I do. I hate dressing up and trying to act like a gentleman and say and do all the right things. I can, and I've learned to bluff my way through, but I've never learned to like it. Hell, I was dirt poor before I built up the Spur."

She had forgotten. He seemed so suave and comfortable at those affairs that she'd actually

forgotten his beginnings. "You never told me you hated it."

"I never told you a lot of things I felt," he said shortly, his eyes narrowing. "I'm trying. Can you see that? I'm trying not to hold things in." She'd sensed it, but it was nice to know it. She reached out hesitantly and touched his hand, loving the way his fingers curved towards hers, gathering them in. His fingers contracted. "I feel guilty about Jamaica," he said tautly, bringing her shocked eyes up. "I lost control and I hurt you. I thought I'd killed..." He averted his gaze.

She gasped. She'd been too wrapped up in her grief to see through his cold, angry mask. Tears stung her eyes. She went against him without hesitation, just as she always had when he needed comforting, without a single sane thought of her own survival.

She clung to him. "You didn't kill our baby." She held him closer, feeling the shudder that ran through him. "Stop blaming yourself."

"I blamed you instead." He gathered her against him convulsively. "I'm..." He hesitated. He had to swallow to get it out. "I'm...sorry."

Kate cried. It was that much a milestone in their rocky relationship.

"Oh, don't cry, for God's sake," he muttered, hiding his embarrassment in bad temper. "Stop it, Kate." She laughed through her tears. He didn't realize it yet, but they were on the way to a brand new relationship, to a future that was going to be so bright it might blind them both. She threw her head back and looked up at him with her radiant face. "Okay," she laughed. "God forbid that I should embarrass you."

"Yes. God forbid." He searched her wet eyes slowly. Then he bent and kissed away the tears, smoothing them away from the warmth of her eyelids. "We'd better go home," he whispered. "If you're going to help me with that sale, I'll have to tell you what I want."

She nuzzled her nose against his. "I'll give you three guesses what I want right now," she whispered at his lips.

But he put her away from him firmly, his eyes faintly amused. "No."

She blinked. Her eyes searched his face, looking for cracks in the armor.

"Sex," he said slowly, "is an exquisite way to express what two people feel for each other. But it shouldn't be the foundation of a marriage." He scowled, searching for words. "We put the cart before the horse, just like you said last night. You don't really know me, except in a surface way, because I've never shared what I feel with you. What I'm trying to say is that I think we should turn the cart around, Kate."

Her face at that moment was beautiful. She smiled at him, her eyes alive with feeling. "Does that mean we'll see each other besides at the supper table once a week?" "That's what it means." He slid his hands warmly up her arms. "And I'll try to stop living in the past."

"Then, isn't there something else you need to do?" she asked quietly.

He knew without asking what she meant. His face went hard. "No."

"Jason..."

"No!"

She sighed, lowering her eyes to his chest. "All right, I won't push." But it was depressing that, even with this new attitude, he still couldn't find a way to forgive his mother. Nell Donavan would die sooner or later, and it would be tragic if Jason never tried to see her and hear her side of the story.

Kate's portrait took longer than Gene expected it to. It was just past Thanksgiving Day when he
finally produced the painting.

They had just finished supper and Kate and Cherry had gone to visit Mary. Gene ushered Jason into the living room, where he had the portrait on an easel, to watch his older brother's reaction.

Jason didn't move an inch. His smoking cigarette hung limply at his side while he stared and stared at the canvas with eyes so hungry that Gene actually looked away in embarrassment

Kate was running through a meadow of wildflowers. Daisies and black-eyed Susans, Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets dotted the lush grass, and behind her a big mesquite tree's feathery fronds danced in the same wind that blew the skirt of her white lacy dress against her legs. Her long black hair hung over her shoulders, and she was wearing a big brimmed, floppy lace hat on her head. She was laughing, as Kate always had in earlier times. The green eyes that shone out of her lightly tanned, oval face gave her a

sweet mystery, an elusive beauty that held Jason spellbound. "Did you do that from memory?" Jason asked him after a long pause. "Most of it," Gene said quietly. "All of it, except for the dress and hat—I had a photo of her in

those when she came to our wedding, it was a dress that Cherry had loaned her. I remember she didn't want to risk ruining it, and Cherry insisted. It suited her." "Yes," Jason said idly. He couldn't look away from her pretty, impish expression. "Gene...that look in her eyes...you did that from memory?"

"She looked like that the day you were married," Gene replied, knowing that it was a delicate memory for his brother, and his voice was soft and hesitant. "When she looked up at you, just before you kissed her...."

Jason had thought about that a lot, lately, now that he and Kate were speaking to each other, laughing together, getting acquainted all over again. They were growing closer in every way, except physically. He held back because he didn't want her to get the idea that all he wanted was her body. But his hunger for her was getting more unmanageable by the day, and that painting succeeded in arousing him as much as Kate did.

He wanted it. He'd made a new payment on the interest, although the next one would get close pretty soon and he wasn't sure he could meet it. He'd pay Gene on the installment plan if he had to, but he wanted that portrait. "You can name your own price for that," he said, staring at the open doorway that led into the hall. "Anything you want."

"You name the price," Gene said. "I'll even give it to you, if you like it that much."

"Like it." Jason laughed, but there was an odd huskiness in his voice. He took a long draw from the cigarette, and his posture was rigid. He blew out a cloud of smoke on a heavy breath, and finally he turned,
composed again. "It's the best work I've ever seen," he told his brother with genuine praise. "If that's the kind of thing you want to do for a living, I expect you'll make more than I ever do rais
ing cattle."

Gene flushed with embarrassment. He hadn't expected anything more than a grunt, or maybe an argument. He hadn't expected this. "Thanks, Jay," he said.

Jason smiled at him. "Okay, son, you've made your point. You're a damned good artist. I'll help you, any way I can. But that," he added, nodding toward it, his eyes narrowing with possession, "that doesn't leave this house, even if it is your best work. It's mine."

"So is Kate. Isn't she?" Gene asked gently.

"God, I hope so," Jason said with unexpected fervor. "At least we're making a start again."

"You'd make it quicker if you stopped having separate bedrooms," Gene murmured dryly.

"Tell me about the portrait you're doing for Mrs. Drake," Jason asked.

"You're avoiding the issue."

"Which means I'm through discussing it." He turned. "Come on. What are you painting for

Mrs. Drake?"

"Her youngest grandsons," he sighed. "She's already approved the preliminary sketch. Nice

lady. Did you know she'd been teaching Kate how to give parties?"

Jason's eyebrows arched. "What?"

"Well, Kate thought you were ashamed of her, so she's trying to bone up on manners and

deportment. Mrs. Drake is teaching her. She says she'll shock you with the Christmas dinner party

she's throwing for the rest of those businessmen on the list you gave her."

"I told her I wasn't ashamed of her. I thought she'd given up on all that." He frowned.

"Surprise, surprise," Gene grinned. "Kate's full of them."

"Yes, I know." The older man's dark eyes went back to the portrait on the easel, caressing it.

"God, she's beautiful," he said half under his breath.

"Indeed she is," Gene murmured. He smiled softly at his own handiwork. "She was pregnant

when I painted her, just like Cherry is now. There's something about a woman when she's carrying

a child. Something gentle and mysterious. Elusive."

"I guess Cherry's already picked out a name," Jason replied, trying not to sound bitter

because their baby was only a memory now.

"Several," Gene admitted. "Along with a hundred dollars' worth of baby clothes, a bed, and

so forth." He glanced at Jason. "And it cuts you to the bone to hear about it, I know. That's another

reason Cherry and I want to get into our own house by Christmas, Jay. It will be better for you

and Kate to have some time alone. Oh, Sheila's around, sure, but she never intrudes."

Jason felt hunted. "I'm over it," he said shortly. "There's no reason for you to have to buy a

house...."

"But we want to," Gene replied. He stuck his hands in his pocket and stared at his older brother, smiling. "Look, Jay, if I have normal bills, I'll have to produce. I have Cherry and a baby to think about now, and I'm responsible for them. It will be for the best, in the long run."

"If you need help, any time," Jason said. "I'm here."

"You always have been." Gene's face hardened. "My God, even when I was a kid, you were always there, taking licks I deserved, doing anything to protect me from Dad when he was drinking; do you think I could ever forget the sacrifices you've made for me?"

Jason couldn't handle that. He moved away. "Stop it," he said curtly. "You'll have me in tears." Gene didn't realize that it was the truth. He thought it was just more of Jason's standoffish dry humor. "Okay," he murmured, and forced a laugh. "As long as you know that I'd die for you." "I'd do the same for you, Gene," came the quiet reply. "Now can we talk about something else? Like how much I'm going to have to come up with for that painting?" Gene gave up. Jason couldn't let people get close. He wondered if Kate would ever really get through that wall around him, or if that was the real problem in their marriage. They talked about the painting, and then Gene got something off his chest that had bothered him for days. "Jay," he began, "do you remember the day you sent me to get a stock quotation out of your desk drawer in the study."

Jason turned. "Sure. Why?"

The younger man hesitated. This was even more sensitive ground than Kate. "I saw a letter."

"She deserted us," Jason reminded him. His eyes grew cold, hard. "She walked out on us and let that drunken tyrant beat and bruise and humiliate us. Can you forgive that? Well, I can't. I want no part of her."

"Then why keep the letter?"

Jason hated questions he couldn't answer. That one disturbed him. Without a word, without a gesture, he turned on his heel and left the room. Gene watched, wondering. He had an odd feeling that if Jason ever bent enough to admit how he felt about Kate that it might thaw him just a little. Maybe it might make him more human, more responsive to the human frailties he seemed to hate in himself and everyone else. He wanted Kate, Gene knew that. But if he loved her, some of Kate's natural empathy might get through to him. Everybody in the family, except Jason, knew how Kate felt. It was only getting Jason to accept the

cost of love that was the problem. But perhaps one day he would. And if Jason didn't, Gene

would go to see that woman in Arizona. But he wasn't giving up on big brother yet. He knew

there was a soft spot in that hard armor. And it was getting softer by the day, thanks to Kate.

Kate got to see her portrait later that night, when she walked into the living room. It was

hanging over the fireplace. She gasped at the sight of herself in such detail.

"My goodness," she burst out. "Is that me?"

"It looks like you," Cherry replied. "You dish! Doesn't my husband paint pretty portraits?"

"I love it. It's too pretty to be me," Kate sighed, smiling up at it. "My, my, you're going to be

so famous, Gene, and I'll be able to say that I knew you in your starving garret days."

"Speaking of which, we move Saturday," Gene mused, winking at Cherry. "Into our own

little house, with our own little mortgage."

"I'll miss you both," Kate said honestly.

"You can visit," Cherry said. "And we're not moving that far away!"

"Well, in that case, I'll visit a lot," Kate returned. "Especially when the baby comes." In that

instant, even as they began talking about baby furniture, she grew morose. She thought about the baby she'd lost, for the first time in weeks, and she could have cried with the emptiness she felt. She and Jason were growing closer, but he never touched her these days. He was gentle and affectionate. But affection wasn't love. And she began now to worry about the future. What if he never loved her?

At least she'd shown her abilities as a hostess at that production sale, mingling with guests, talking cattle to the men and fashion to the women. It had been a lovely day all round, sunny and bright. Afterward, Jason had been lavish with praise and so obviously proud of his wife that she'd gone to bed with delicious memories. But she'd gone to bed alone. As she always did now. Jason never even opened the door of the guest room where he slept. And the nights were lonely and too long. She wished she could ask him why he didn't want her anymore, if he didn't. Perhaps he was afraid to risk another child.

The day that Gene and Cherry moved out, Kate grew quiet and brooding. They'd been so happy about having their own place. Jason and Kate had gone along with the last stick of furniture to see them settled. It was the baby furniture that had done it. Kate had burst into tears the minute she'd gone into her room for the night. She'd cried the whole time she was putting on her thin green gown with its delicate lace, and was crying still as she cleaned the makeup from her face and combed her dark hair that was slowly growing long again.

It was nearing Christmas and she wondered what it might have been like if she'd still been pregnant. It was really ridiculous to grieve anymore, she told herself, but she couldn't help it. She'd wanted the child so much.

Just as the tears were burning her cheeks and she was sniffling back more, the door opened quietly and the light went on.

"I shouldn't be able to hear you crying, should I?" Jason asked from the doorway. "But I did."

He looked tired. He was still dressed in his suit because he'd gone straight from Gene and Cherry's new house to some business meeting. He hadn't even loosened the tie, and Kate thought that, even blurred by tears, he was still the handsomest man she'd ever seen. He came into the room, pausing beside the bed.

"What's the matter, honey?" he asked gently.

"I was thinking about the baby," she whispered, and the tears ran again as she held out her arms, like a lost and frightened child. He didn't even hesitate. He reached down, throwing bad the bedcovers to scoop her up in his hard arms and hold her, rocking her with the strength and warmth of his body, "Shhh," he whispered at her ear. "Damn it, I should have been with you in Atlanta," he murmured huskily. "I never should have left you there alone."

"You were hurting, too," she whispered brokenly. "I understood." Hadn't she always, he thought bitterly. He held her closer, drinking in the soft, woman scent of her body, the exquisite yielding of it in his arms. God, it felt good to hold her. To have her close and clinging to him, to smell the sweet fragrance of her clean, warm body. He could feel her through the gown, even through his suit, and he wanted so much to lie her down on that bed and make the sweetest love to her. But he had to go slow. "You need a good night's sleep," he murmured. "It was just reaction, from seeing the baby furniture at Gene and Cherry's." She stared at his chest. "I guess so." She sighed. "I guess I'll never have another one. It

would be hard to go through that again, anyway," she added, trying not to let him see how badly she wanted it. "Are you afraid of the risk?" he asked point blank. She avoided his gaze. Did that mean that

he was? "I don't know," she began hesitantly, trying to think of a way to approach the subject that wouldn't alienate him. He saw her frown and abruptly changed the subject. "Well, we've got other things to worry about right now," he said. "And Christmas is coming up."

He shifted her, so that she was closer, wrapped up in his warm arms, rough fabric against soft skin. She let him do it, too drugged by the feel of his arms around her to argue. She nuzzled under the jacket and against his white silk shirt. Under it, she could feel the hard muscle and the gentle cushion of thick hair. She remembered how it felt against her bare breasts and trembled a little with traces of pleasure. Her fingers unconsciously curled into his chest, her nails delicately scoring him with a slow, sensual rhythm that she wasn't even aware of. All the while her tears began to dry.