Lorraine Heath (11 page)

Houston shoved himself to his feet. “I need to round up the mules. You stay here and dry off.”

His long strides couldn’t take him far enough, fast enough. Her flowery scent followed him like a shadow. The lingering taste of
her
lips taunted him, made him hungry for more. He could still feel the soft swells of her breasts shifting beneath his chest. His fingers ached to hold them, shape them, and caress them with a tenderness he’d never known existed.

He released a shudder as he skidded down the muddy bank. He needed a sporting woman. He’d gone too long without spending himself on a woman. That was the reason he found this journey so damn difficult, the reason he wanted to hold Amelia close. He just needed to purge his longings. Maria would help him. She always did. She would douse all the flames, and in total darkness, he’d take her without passion, without love, without hope. And in the darkness, she couldn’t see the ugliness that made him the man he was.

He didn’t want Amelia to see the ugliness, either, but she would. Sooner or later, she would.

When night fell, Amelia eased as close to the fire as she dared and wrapped the horse’s blanket around herself. The wind came up off the river, damp and frigid. She shuddered.

“Cold?”

She lifted her gaze to the man sitting on the other side of the fire. He’d found the horse and three of the mules. She had a feeling that he’d found the fourth mule as well. She’d heard a gunshot, but he hadn’t brought any food back to their small camp. Tomorrow, they would comb the banks of the river to see what they could recover.

“A little,” she said, hating the way her teeth clicked together as she spoke. She hadn’t been able to regain any warmth since he’d ended the kiss.

Watching him, if she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was having an argument with someone. His brow furrowed deeply, his jaw clenched, and with his finger, he drew something in the dirt. Then like a man who had lost the battle, he shoved to his feet and walked around to her side of the fire.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she scrambled to her knees so she could see what he’d written. The light from the flames danced over Dallas’s brand.

Houston sat beside her, and she met his gaze. “Why did you draw that?”

“As a reminder that he has a claim on you.” He stretched out on the ground and opened his duster. “Come here.”

She hesitated, her heart pounding. As an unmarried woman betrothed to his brother, she knew she should suffer through the cold, shouldn’t welcome the warmth his body could provide. She closed her hand around the watch, her gift to Dallas that was still hidden in her pocket, and lay next to Houston.

He wrapped his duster and one arm around her, crooking his other arm. “Here, use my arm as a pillow,” he said quietly.

She scooted back, nestling her backside against his stomach and laying her head on his arm.

“Better?” he asked.

“Warmer.” She studied his curled hand, the long tanned fingers. She knew the strength those fingers held, had felt it this afternoon as he’d braced her face and lowered his mouth to hers. The pads and palms of his fingers were callused, and she resisted the urge to place her hand over his, to press palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip.

“What will we do tomorrow?” she asked.

“See what we can salvage. Use the mules as pack animals.”

“I guess we should have waited to cross the river.”

“Yeah.”

She heard his sigh more than his word. “Why didn’t we?”

Silence fell heavy between them. Amelia rolled over within his arms and felt him stiffen. “Why didn’t we wait?”

“Because we’d already lost too much time,” he stated flatly.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“Because I’m a fool.”

She touched her fingers to his lips. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand back.

“Don’t do that,” he said gruffly.

“We shouldn’t have crossed the river. You shouldn’t have kissed me. Yet, you did both. Why?”

“Because it’s been too damn long since I’ve been with a woman. Don’t read any feelings into what happened this afternoon. I’m a man and I’ve got needs. Needs any woman would fill. Right now, you’re the only woman within two hundred miles.”

“So it’s not me specifically. It’s only because I’m a woman.”

“That’s right,” he said curtly.

“And why did I kiss you back?”

“I reckon women have needs, too.”

“And any man would do? That makes me no better than a whore.”

He released her wrist. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” she said softly. “You think it’s the circumstances and not the people that made us turn to each other this afternoon.”

“That’s right. You won’t be turning to me once we get to the ranch. Once you’re with Dallas. Now go to sleep.”

She rolled over, giving him her back. She watched the flames in the low fire flicker, just as her thoughts flickered. Was he right? Had she kissed him just because he was there? Because she’d been terrified? “Houston?”

She had been quiet for so long that Houston had been certain she’d fallen asleep. He’d never before heard his name come from her lips as anything but a scream. His heart tightened, and he fought against pulling her closer. “What?”

“What sort of man is Dallas?”

A better man than me. He swallowed, searching for the words that would do his brother justice, true words that would ease her doubts. “He’s the kind of man who casts a long shadow … a shadow that reaches out to touch everyone and everything. Years from now, people who never knew him will remember him.”

She rolled over, pressing her face against his shoulder. “And my shadow will be short. I worry that the man I imagined in the letters doesn’t really exist. He seems almost perfect.”

“All I can tell you is that I couldn’t ask for a finer brother, and I don’t imagine you could ask for a finer husband.”

“What if he’s disappointed when he meets me?”

Tenderness filled him at her insecurity. “He won’t be disappointed. I can give you my word on that.” Reaching over her, he tucked his duster around her. “Now you’d best get to sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be another long day.”

“I’m so grateful you were with me today,” she said quietly as she closed her eyes.

Houston couldn’t remember if anyone had ever before been grateful for his presence. His mother, he supposed. Certainly not his father.

Unlike Dallas, Houston had never measured up to his father’s expectations. He had never been strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough.

“Swear to God, I ought to dress you in girl’s clothing!” his father had bellowed the day he had discovered Houston holding a rag doll in the mercantile.

The doll had looked so lonely sprawled over the counter, where a little girl had left her while she browsed the assortment of candies. And so soft. He’d just wanted to see if she was as soft as she looked.

She had been. Her embroidered face had carried a permanent smile, a smile that had made Houston grin crookedly at her.

He realized now that the smile more than the doll had probably set his father off. Or maybe it had been both. Either way, his actions hadn’t been of a manly nature. When they’d returned home, his father had taken a switch to Houston’s backside. A switch he’d made Houston find.

When the punishment ended, Houston had pulled his trousers up with as much dignity as he could muster. When he had turned, and his father had seen the silent tears coursing down his cheeks, he’d struck Houston’s face. The switch had cut into his tender young flesh, leaving a scar that ran the length of his cheek.

He’d hated the scar, often wished it was gone. His mother had warned him to be wary of what he wished for.

When he was fifteen, his wish had come true. Yankee artillery fire had blown the scar off his face, leaving a place for thicker scars to form. He hadn’t made a wish since.

But he found himself wishing now. Wishing that the arm holding Amelia hadn’t grown as numb as the left side of his face. He could no longer feel the warmth of her body, the sureness of her weight. His one chance to hold a decent woman within his arms through the night, and his arm had fallen asleep.

He thought about adjusting his position, but he didn’t want to wake her. His free hand hovered over her face, and like a moonbeam kissing the waters of a lake, he brushed her hair away from her cheek. So soft. So incredibly soft. Like the rag doll he’d held so long ago.

Only she wasn’t a doll. She was a woman, flesh and blood, a woman whom Dallas had entrusted into his keeping.

A woman with eyes the green of clover, hair the shade of an autumn moon.

And courage as boundless as the West Texas plains.

E
verything. Everything was gone.
Amelia stared at the brown flowing river and wondered why they even bothered to look. Her letters from Dallas were gone. A miniature of her mother. She had brought everything that had ever meant anything to her—and now everything was gone.

Everything except the pocket watch she’d purchased for Dallas.

She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. She’d lost everything once before, and somehow she’d managed to survive. She would survive again.

She lifted her chin in defiance, daring the fates to toy with her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the sunlight glint through the mud. Lifting her skirts, she walked cautiously to the water’s edge.

Her mirror, the mirror her mother had given her, caught and reflected the sunlight. Reaching down, she pulled it from the mud and washed it gently in the water. A sweet memory from the distant past.

She dried the mirror on her skirt, then held it up to gaze at her reflection. She was a mess. Her hair tangled, a bruise on her sun-tinged cheek, a button missing from her bodice. She stared harder at the mirror. In the background, a green cloud billowed in the breeze. She gazed over her shoulder and looked down the stream.

She trudged along the water’s edge until she reached the green dress, the bodice wrapped tightly around the spindly branches of a bush, the skirt flapping in the wind. Amelia gathered the skirt close, buried her face in the smooth fabric, and let the tears fall.

And that was how Houston found her. Sitting in the mud with the water lapping at her feet, her knees drawn up, her face hidden by the abundance of green silk.

He wished he could have spared her this journey, could have just plucked her up and put her in Dallas’s house without asking her to endure heartache, storms, and raging rivers.

He imagined sitting on the porch years from now with his nieces and nephews circled around him, telling them about the journey he’d made with their mother. A woman of courage, he’d call her.

And he hoped that no one would hear in his voice or see reflected in his gaze that he’d fallen in love with her.

He skidded down the muddy bank and caught his balance, stopping himself before he plunged into the river. He trudged through the mud and knelt beside her. “Amelia?”

She lifted her tear-streaked face. “This was the first dress I’d had in over ten years that didn’t belong to someone else first. I was going to save it for the day I married Dallas.” She crushed the skirt to her chest. “It’s all caught up on the branches.”

He knew well the feeling of wearing someone else’s hand-me-downs. He had worn Dallas’s discarded clothing until the war. The first piece of clothing he had worn that had been his and his alone had been the gray jacket his mother had sewn him so he could ride off with pride alongside his father and older brother.

Only he hadn’t felt pride … only fear, a cold dread that had slithered through his bowels. A terror as unsettling as the one surrounding him now. He wanted this woman safe, safe within his brother’s arms, where Houston couldn’t touch her, where he couldn’t drag her down into the hell that was his life.

He removed his knife. “I’ll cut the branches, and you can take your time working the dress free. Maybe you can repair the damage.”

He moved around her and began hacking at the limbs.

“I found my mother’s mirror,” she said quietly. She touched his brim. “You found your hat.”

“Yep. Other than that, I haven’t had much luck. The water’s too strong. The current’s too fast.”

“Are we going to go back to John and Bern’s?”

“Didn’t see that they had much to spare. Think we’d just end up losing time and gaining very little.”

“Then what will we do?”

He cut through the last branch and sheathed his knife. “We’ll survive. We’ve still got everything I’d packed on Sorrel. It’s not much, but it’s enough. I’ve traveled with less.”

She bundled up the green silk and rose. Houston shoved himself to his feet, removed his hat, and extended it toward her. “You’ll need to wear this.”

Her eyes widened. “But that’s your hat.”

“I know, but I can’t find Austin’s hat or your bonnet, and the sun will turn your pretty skin into leather. It can’t hurt mine much.” He grimaced as a tear trailed along her cheek. “Don’t start crying on me.”

“But I know what your hat means to you.”

He almost told her that she meant more, but reined in the words that he had no right to voice aloud. “Then take good care of it because I’ll want it back when we get to the ranch.”

The cold winds whipped through the intimate camp. Amelia pulled the blanket more closely around her, tugged Houston’s hat down so the brim protected her neck, and scooted closer to the fire. They had traveled most of the day, she on Sorrel, Houston straddled across a mule. They had Sorrel’s blankets and the nearby brush to ward off the winds.

“Do you think it will snow?” she asked.

He glanced up. “No. Imagine in a day or so, it’ll be warm again.” “This isn’t winter?”

He shook his head. She returned her gaze to the fire. She wished she had Dallas’s letters. After all the times she’d read them, she should have had every word memorized, but she couldn’t remember anything he’d written.

All she could remember was the way Houston’s kiss had made her toes curl, the firmness of his body folded around hers last night, and the warmth of his breath fanning her cheek.

Would Dallas tuck her body protectively beneath his as they slept after they were married? Would he gently comb her hair back when he thought she was sleeping? Would he make her body grow as hot as the flames licking at the logs?

She rose to her feet, walked around the fire, and knelt beside Houston. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

His words surprised her, although she supposed he was coming to know her as well as she was coming to know him. “How did you know?”

“You get this deep dent in the middle of your forehead.”

“What else do you know about me?”

“That you’re about to start asking me questions.”

“Not exactly.” She scooted a little closer to him. “You said you had needs—”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Don’t you have needs?”

“Yeah, I got needs, but I shouldn’t tell a lady about them.”

“Why not?”

“I just shouldn’t, that’s all.

” She gnawed on her lip. “So I shouldn’t tell you I have needs, either?”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

Bringing the blanket more closely around her, she stared into the fire. She tried to imagine Dallas as she stared into the fire. She tried to imagine Dallas as she had envisioned him all those months, without a mustache and with blue eyes. She concentrated on the image she now had of him: brown eyes, a mustache. A woman’s dream. A dream she couldn’t yet touch … “I do have needs,” she said quietly. She turned her head slightly and thought he looked terrified. “I was thinking about what you said … that any woman would do. I’m wondering if it’s the same for me. If any man would satisfy what I’m feeling right now.”

“What exactly are you feeling?”

“That I want to be kissed. If you want to be kissed, and any woman would do, why not kiss me? Then both our needs would go away, and maybe we could both go to sleep instead of sitting here staring at the fire.”

“Id rather stare at the fire.”

Pain shot through her as though he’d just sent a herd of his horses stampeding over her heart. His words shouldn’t have hurt. He wasn’t the man she was going to marry—

“Don’t do that,” he ordered. “Don’t get those tears in your eyes.”

She gave him her back, fighting the sorrow, the anger, and the hurt. “It’s not fair. Until we crossed that river, I’d never been kissed.” Surging to her feet, she turned on him like a wolf trapped in the wilderness. “It wasn’t fair to give me these needs and then leave me to deal with them on my own. I’ve never felt like this … like I’ll die if you don’t kiss me.”

She whipped around and marched into the darkness away from the fire, immediately regretting her foolishness, but having too much pride to return to the warmth and the light. Surely, Dallas would want to kiss her and satisfy her needs anytime she wanted.

A large hand cradled her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I made a fool of myself. I can’t remember what Dallas wrote in his letters. I feel lost … just like all our belongings. And afraid. And—”

“He said he wasn’t lonely.” Gently, Houston turned her and nudged his hat up off her brow. The firelight crept over his shoulder and caressed the patch and scars while leaving his eye and unmarred cheek cast in darkness. Once, she would have wasted the moment trying to imagine him as he might have looked if he’d fought no battle. Now, she simply accepted the rugged features that war had carved into his face.

“He said a wife and sons would enrich his life.” He glided his hand from her shoulder up to her cheek and tilted her face. “He asked you to become his wife.”

“And I said yes, but surely a simple kiss …” Her voice trailed into silence as he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. Since the war, she had always feared the dark, and it seemed as though it had swallowed them both as he lowered his mouth to hers.

Leaning against him, she twined her arms around his neck, wanting him closer, relishing his warmth as it seeped into her.

He groaned deeply, and she felt the rumble of his chest against her breasts. He plowed his hand into her hair as his mouth plundered hers, his tongue probing, seeking, causing her toes to curl.

He slipped an arm beneath her knees and lifted her against his chest. She kissed his neck, his throat, his jaw as he carried her to the fire. She clutched his shirt as he laid her on the ground and fanned out the sides of his duster before stretching his body over hers and settling his mouth against hers.

She could hear the howling of the wind, the far-off cry of a wolf, and the beating of her own heart keeping pace with his. Needs swelled up within her, needs she’d never known existed. The hard, even lines of his body melded against her soft curves. Over the worn fabric of her bodice, he palmed her breast, kneading her flesh tenderly. She couldn’t hold back the whimper that rose in her throat or the desire that exploded like fireworks on the Fourth of July. She arched her back, wanting, needing him closer than he was.

He dipped his head and trailed kisses along the column of her throat.

“It’s not working,” she rasped.

“I know.” Lifting his head, he gazed down on her, brushing the stray strands of hair away from her cheeks.

“You knew it wouldn’t work, that what I was proposing was silly—”

“Not silly.” A wealth of tenderness filled his gaze. “Definitely not silly.”

“I need more.”

He brought her hand to his lips and placed a kiss in the heart of her palm. “It’s not mine to give you.”

“Will Dallas give me what I need?”

“And more. He’ll give you the very best. Sporting women don’t even charge him for the pleasure of his company.”

“Do they charge you?”

“Double.” He nibbled on her lips. “Remember that. You’ll be getting the best when you marry Dallas. No need to settle for less before then.”

He shifted his body and wrapped the duster around her. Then he reached for the blanket, draped it over her, and tucked her in close beside him. “Go to sleep now.”

But she couldn’t sleep. Unfulfilled desires ravaged her body. She watched the firelight play across his features, golden shadows, amber hues. His body held a tenseness that rivaled hers. How did he expect her to sleep when her toes were still curled, her skin tingled from his touch, and her breast ached for the feel of his palm? “It would have been better if Dallas had come for me.”

“Yep.”

She turned into him. “Rub my back like you did when I was sick.”

He splayed his fingers over her back and began the lonely sojourn.

“What I feel when you kiss me—”

“It’s lust, just lust,” he interjected.

“That’s why you said any woman would do.”

“Yep.”

She snuggled against him and concentrated on the motion of his hand, the small circles, the occasional sweeps. She imagined she was lying within Dallas’s arms, wanting his warmth, his touch, and his even breathing surrounding her.

But when she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of Houston.

Amelia awoke to the sound of thunder and groaned. “Not another storm.”

“Not a storm, a stampede,” Houston said, an urgency to his voice as he rolled away from her. “Get up.”

She rose to her feet, the full moon playing hide-and-seek with the shadows. He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward a tree. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Need to get you off the ground. Grab that branch,” he ordered as he swung her off the ground.

She did as he instructed and scrambled into the tree. “Aren’t you coming?” she yelled as the thunder grew louder.

She didn’t know if he heard her as he raced to the mules and freed them from their hobbles. Then he released his horse and started running back toward the tree.

Terror swept through her heart as the tree began to shake and the air reverberated around her. “Hurry!”

He lunged toward the tree, grabbed a branch, and swung to safety just as the herd reached the outskirts of their small camp.

Amelia tightened her hold on the tree limb as the horses rushed under her. The moon sheathed their backs in pale light, outlining their muscles as they bunched and stretched with their movements. Their manes whipped through the breeze. Their galloping hooves pounded the earth and stamped out the campfire. Their frantic neighs filled the night.

Amelia watched, mesmerized by their beauty, their singular purpose. The last horse shone the brightest, the color of the moon. It came to a staggering stop, raised on its hindquarters, threw its head back, and neighed defiantly before continuing on, following the herd.

When the thundering hooves fell into an eerie silence, Houston slid down the tree. He held up a hand and waited, as though testing the night. Amelia could sense the tenseness in his stance. Slowly, he reached for her. “Come on.”