Heart of the West (82 page)

And if, as the scholars said, the order and rhythm of heaven flowed through everything, then no place ought to be foreign to a soul at peace. And no single place ought to be called home. Her feet slowed.

The worst lies, Hannah Yorke had once said during one of their whiskey parties, were the ones you told yourself.

No red banners were hanging from the moon gate of her lao chia awaiting her return. There was nothing there for her anymore. There had been nothing there for a long time now.

What her father had done to her was worse than what her mother had done to him. So of what value was his forgiveness? What was done was done and couldn't be undone, not in this life. And if such was the way of life's treacheries, then such could be the way of life's bounties. Sometimes the hardest lesson was learning to let go.

And sometimes... sometimes it was knowing when to reach out and take your heart's desire.

She stopped in the middle of the street. She looked west, toward the mountains and China. Then slowly she turned and looked east, where the sun rose. Where life began anew each day.

"Lily!"

A giant of a man stumbled off the boardwalk, almost into the path of an ice wagon.

"Watch where you're goin', you blamed fool!" the driver shouted. "What's the matter—are you blind?"

She began to run, her deformed feet twisting and tripping over the ruts in the red mud. She tried to draw breath to call his name, but her lungs thrust up against the walls of her chest, threatening to burst. For a moment it seemed she ran and went nowhere, and then it was as if her feet had pulled free of the earth and she was floating toward him, floating with him, together, up, up, up into the bottomless Montana sky.

And even when she stopped in front of him and set a suddenly quiet Samuel onto his feet, even then she couldn't find the breath to speak, although his name was on her lips and the sight of him filled her world.

He saw her, though, with his heart, for he turned his face toward her and he smiled. "Lily."

My destiny is a circle that is still only half drawn.

His strong arms came around her, and the circle was closed.

CHAPTER 33

Clementine stepped out onto the gallery. The boards were cold beneath her bare feet. The wind snatched madly at her night rail and tore at her hair. She wondered when she had gone from hating the wind to loving it.

The roiling night sky bellowed and crackled, spitting fire, and the rain poured. She gripped her elbows, hugging herself, as lightning cut jagged streaks before her eyes. Booms of thunder thrummed from mountain to mountain, resonating in her blood. The wind blew wild through the cottonwoods. Love's whisperings.

Lightning flared again, bright as an exploding camera flash. She saw him through a curtain of rain, standing beneath the cottonwoods, looking down at his brother's grave.

Her heart was thundering in her chest now, beating as wildly as the storm. She longed to go to him, to get back what she'd once had and given up for love of his brother, for love of him... for fear of him.

She wondered if he thought Gus's grave neglected, if he read something into the moss-covered rocks and lack of a headstone, something that wasn't true. And something else that was. She had loved Gus, but not perfectly, for there had always been something safe about the love she'd felt for him. And something empty. And she could rarely bring herself to go near his grave, because he rested so close to Charlie.

The old pain, the eternal pain, of Charlie's dying clouded her grieving for Gus, as it had clouded all of her life since it had happened. The pain of his loss was still nearly unbearable, and would always be so. He would have been eleven years old this last Christmas, edging up on becoming a man. She had missed all those days of his growing up, and she would never know now what sort of man he would have made. She had lost a part of herself when Charlie died; once she had thought Rafferty could give that part back to her, if he dared. If she dared... He'd always had the ability to mend the broken pieces in her while shattering others.

She went down the gallery steps and into the yard.

She didn't know how he could have heard her footfalls amid the howling madness of the storm. But he spun around as soon as she neared, his coat whipping open to expose a flash of white shirt. The wind blew the rain in drifts, the water sluicing off his hat. In the long shadows between lightning flashes, he looked more dangerous than ever.

He came right at her without warning, like a wildcat pouncing.

He gripped her shoulders and hauled her up against him, his mouth coming down hard onto hers. There had never been anything tender or gentle in the way he kissed her. Those other two kisses had been violent and cruel, full of fire. And this one was no different.

She pressed her fists against his chest and tore Her mouth free. "Don't..."

"Don't say that, Clementine. Don't tell me 'don't' no more."

He lowered his head again, but she turned her face aside. "Not here."

Lightning flashed. His eyes glowed hot and piercing and slightly wild. "Here, dammit."

Her protest dissolved against his lips. His tongue plundered her mouth, scouring it of all pride, of all resistance. She surrendered to the power of his hunger, and her own. Gus was dead; he could no longer be hurt.

Bracing his legs apart, he pulled her hard into the cradle of his hips, their mouths locked together. The night was black and wild around them. The wind seemed to be coming from every direction at once, roaring through the cottonwoods, dashing the rain into misty swirls like a waterfall.

"Jesus," he moaned into her open mouth. "Jesus, Jesus..." He rubbed his lips over her cheekbone, licking at her eyes. "Don't cry."

"I'm not. No, no, I'm not." But her face felt odd, as if it were melting like tallow beneath a flame.

She laid her open mouth against the shadowed hollow beneath his jaw. She felt the wild throbbing of his pulse. She tasted a wetness too salty to be rain. "You're crying, too."

His throat moved beneath her lips as he swallowed hard, "I grieved for you, Clementine. I've grieved and grieved for twelve long years, ever since that first day I saw you sitting up there on Snake-Eye's buckboard and lookin' so proud and so fine. For so long I've wanted you that I've thought I was going to die from it. And prayed sometimes that I would..."

"There's no need, no need. Not any more—"

He gripped the sides of her head and stopped her words with his mouth. His breath filled her, followed by the words she'd been longing for, waiting for, forever. "I love you, Clementine."

He bent and, catching her behind the knees and back, swung her off her feet. He crossed the yard, heading for the barn with her in his arms. He was taking her to his bed. It was where she wanted to go.

The coal oil lantern cast a soft yellow pool of light onto his bed. The straw mattress rustled as his body covered hers. He kissed her deeply, a kiss that thrummed through her blood like the thunder beyond the walls. His lips slanted roughly back and forth across hers, forcing her mouth open so that he could fill it with his tongue. He tasted now of the cool wetness of the rain, and of the fire in his heart.

He raised his head. She looked up into those strange brassy eyes that had always frightened her and did so still. Frightened her and drew her.

"Clementine... I've wanted you for so long. So long..."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth back down within reach of hers. His hot breath bathed her lips. "Love me," she said. "Just love me."

She kissed him, a light, sweet kiss, and turned her face into his neck. His hair smelled of the night. His buckskin coat was slick beneath her hands. A shudder racked her.

"You're cold," he said. "Christ, I gotta get you warm—"

"No," she cried as he started to pull away from her. "Don't leave me. Not even for a moment, don't leave me."

He stared down at her and she saw that the hunger raging within him burned closer to the edge now, bordering on fury. He had never been a gentle man, and she didn't want him that way. She wanted him as he was now, full of wildness and sin.

He flung off his jacket, but his shirt had gotten wet and it clung to his chest. She rubbed her hands over it, tearing at the buttons so that she could touch the warm, hard flesh underneath. Their harsh breathing soughed together, wild as the wind, nearly drowning out the drumming rain. Lightning flashed in intermittent brilliants of fire that were caught fast in his eyes, intense and beautiful. The way he was...

He reared up above her, straddling her, his knees pressing deep into the mattress on either side of her hips. The wet cloth strained across his thighs. It reminded her of how he looked riding a horse, so strong, so powerful. So much a cowboy.

She watched as his strong, fine-boned fingers unfastened one by one the pearl buttons of her night rail. He spread it open, the fine batiste snagging on his callused fingers. He looked down at her, a rough groan tearing out of his throat. He cupped her breasts in his palms, his thumbs sweeping back and forth over their tips. Her breasts seemed to swell and throb in his hands, and she arched her back, wanting to give him more. Wanting to give him all of her.

"Aw, Jesus, you're so soft," he said, the words broken and raspy. "I used to look at you and wonder what it would feel like to touch you."

"Sometimes I couldn't bear to look at you, it hurt so much."

He stared at her as if everything about him was arrested, even his heartbeat. His need showed like anguish on his face, and he began to shake with it. As she was shaking, with joy and fear that at last, at last, he was going to take her with him over the edge, into the wildness. Where she had always longed to go, and never dared to.

"Clementine, I want..."

"Yes," she said fiercely. "Oh, yes."

He stretched out his legs and settled over her, giving her his weight. He lowered his head and closed his mouth over a nipple. She almost screamed as he sucked, bathing it with the heat of his breath, nipping it gently. She clung to him, feeling the solid muscles of his shoulders and back beneath the damp cloth of his shirt. His hair fell forward, lapping and caressing her neck, gentle and whispery as a sigh.

He made love to her breasts, lavishing attention on them with his lips and tongue. Scraping the sensitive skin with his day-old beard so that there was a sweetly keen edge to the pleasure as well. He slid his hand beneath her night rail and up her thigh. His hand drifted over her, tracing the hollow beneath the bone of her hip, cupping her belly. Her body felt thick, melting, her skin fiery and tight. And when his fingers lightly, lightly, became entangled in the triangle of her woman's hair, she gasped aloud.

He breathed a ragged laugh, and she felt the warmth of it sweet on her neck. "So you like that, do you, Boston?"

"Yessss," she said on the soft gust of a sigh.

"That's good, darlin'. That's good, 'cause sure as hell is hot, you are gonna be gettin' a whole lot more of it."

He gathered her night rail up around her waist. The air was cool on her naked skin, and yet she was hot, so hot.

She opened her eyes to find him staring down at her, his face hard, almost cruel with his man's need. He kept his eyes riveted on hers as he knelt between her legs, and sliding his hands beneath her hips, he lifted her. Slowly he lowered his head and kissed her belly. And slowly he moved his lips lower, and lower still. Lower and lower, and she twisted her fingers in his hair to stop him, but she didn't want him to stop. And her chest got tighter and tighter until she couldn't breathe again, couldn't breathe as she waited, waited, waited for him to put his mouth there, knowing that when he did, she would burst all apart. Burst apart and die like an exploding sun.

She shuddered hard when he pressed his hot open mouth between her thighs. And a great scream burst open inside of her, a scream that was somehow caught up and swallowed by the storm outside.

"Touch me," he grated harshly. "I want you to touch me."

He took her hand and put it where he wanted it. Her fingers closed around the hard ridge bulging against the fly of his jeans. His erection was a swelling, throbbing, pulsing heat.

He gasped, a sharp, sucked-in breath. He arched his back so that he could unbutton his jeans and push them down over his hips. His penis sprang free, thrusting up thick and raw red from the dark nest of hair below his belly. He lowered himself and eased into her, stretching her wide, filling her all the way up to her heart.

He moved inside her, a slow thrust and drag that began to build and build and build in tempo with the driving rain. Lightning burst in white-hot flashes and the thunder rolled. She wrapped her thighs around his hips, gripping him tight. His hands interlaced with hers, their arms stretching above their heads. Together they gripped the iron rungs of the headboard. It moved against his grinding thrusts, pounding, pounding, pounding into the wall.

He let go and tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back. He brought his face close to hers, still moving hard within her.

"I want you lookin' at me, Clementine." He ground into her, pushing deeper. "I want you knowin' it's me who's inside you."

"I know, I know..." Yet she looked at him. His face shone with sweat. His mouth was hard and twisted as if in pain.

Her legs fell open and her hips lifted to meet his plunging strokes. She tried to keep still, but she couldn't. She didn't want to keep still.

He flattened his palm against her stomach, his fingers inching down, finding her in the tight tangle of blond curls, rubbing her in rhythm with his pounding thrusts. She felt another scream pushing up the back of her throat.

He lowered his head, his mouth brushing hers. "You're mine now."

"Yes."

He drove into her. "Mine."

Her head thrashed and her hips bucked, her heels pressing deep in the mattress.

"Say it. I want to hear you say it."

"Yours."

But she didn't say it. It was more like a wild shout.

He stayed inside her a long time, for she was warm and wet and welcoming, and he wanted to stay in her forever. He held her to him tightly, unable to let go of her as tears burned his eyes. Tears born of a joy and of an ache, and both so fierce he couldn't bear them, and he had to hide the tears in her sweet, rose-scented hair.

But nothing good like this ever lasted, he thought. It always ended, and it always seemed to end with a hurtin'. He eased out of her, hitching his pants up over his hips, leaving them unbuttoned. He lit a cigarette and then washed away the harsh taste of the smoke with the open bottle of whiskey that he'd left sitting beside the bed.

He made himself look at her. She lay staring at him with that wide, still gaze of hers that could swallow up a man. He had made her say she was his, but there was, he knew, more to possessing a woman than bedding her.

"I shouldn't stay," she said when the silence between them had gone on almost beyond bearing.

"It's just that Daniel has bad dreams sometimes," she went on when he said nothing. "And when he wakes up scared he needs me."

And what if I wake up scared? What if I need you?
"You'd better get on back to the house, then," he said.

She averted her face and stood up slowly, smoothing her wet night rail down over her thighs. She raked the tangled mass of sunshine-colored hair off her face with her hands. She looked down at him and he could see in her eyes the need to ask him for the words to go with what they had just done. And the pride that kept her from it.

He listened to her footsteps as she walked away, and the creak of the barn door sliding open and then closed. Listened to the sounds of her leaving him alone.

He lay staring up at the knot-pocked ceiling until the cigarette was gone and the bottle emptied. He rolled over and pushed his face into the soogan. It was damp from her hair, and smelled of sex and wild roses.

Every morning since he'd been sleeping in her barn, he had come into her kitchen for breakfast, and she had fed him at her table like he was her man. And every morning she had thought that this couldn't go on. That something would have to give between them, to break, so that it could either be mended or cast aside forever.