McCrory's Lady (25 page)

      
He fought the urge to kneel beside her and bury his face in that cloud of shining pale hair. Instead, he said quietly, “I brought a friend. He's real anxious to see you again.”

      
“Oh!” Eden looked up in surprise at Wolf, almost dropping her pruning shears. “You came up on me so quietly.”
Like an Indian
. She wanted to call the words back and blushed furiously. “I—I mean, I was too absorbed in the flowers.” Then, his words registered and she looked at the dog. “He's recovered already!” Eden opened her arms and the big red mutt bounded up, giving her face a fulsome slurp as she hugged him, laughing and nuzzling his fur with her cheek.

      
Wolf wanted to exchange places with the cur. He would have sold his soul to have his appearance light up her face, to have her welcome him into her embrace. “Doc Watkins says hell be good as new. Lucky for him his leg wasn't broken, but he is missing a few teeth. He has to eat soft food now.”

      
“I could use the sausage grinder Eileen has in the kitchen to make food for him—oh, that is, if you'd bring him around to the house every day,” she added.

      
Wolf smiled. “I sort of figured from the way you took to him that you'd want to keep him. A man like me can't keep a pet.”
Or a woman
.

      
“That's very generous of you, Mr. Blake. Thank you. I haven't had a dog in years—since I was a girl.”

      
“And that must've been eons ago,” he teased with a grin.

      
She stood up and faced him with the dog between them. Her expression sobered in an instant and her eyes were haunted. “At times it does seem that way, but I'm sure this fellow will help cheer me. Dogs aren't like people. They accept you, flaws and all, without judging or condemning.”

      
“I know,” he replied quietly.

      
Eden looked at his dark, handsome face, usually so hard and shuttered, yet now curiously vulnerable. “Yes, I imagine you do.”

      
“They haven't been easy on you, have they? The good people of Prescott.” His voice was bitter.

      
“No, most haven't. I imagine you understand what it's like—being an outcast. Has it always been hard for you?” She stroked the dog, whose tail thumped loudly.

      
“I got used to it, but I was born not belonging, between Apache and white worlds. For you, raised so fine, being a lady—”

      
“A lady no longer,” Eden said with a scoff in her voice.

      
“Yes, you are, and you'll always be. Don't ever let them convince you differently,” Wolf said with intensity in his voice.

      
She looked up at him, startled by his vehemence. “Maggie told me the same thing, but...it's hard at times. I get so lonely. None of my old friends from the neighboring ranches are allowed to visit. And when we go to town...well, after Mrs. Guessler's tea, I won't be doing that anymore.”

      
“Those vicious hypocrites. They're worthless. In time you'll find out who your real friends are, Miss McCrory.”

      
Her hands stilled on the dog's thick red fur and she met his fathomless black eyes with color staining her cheeks. “Would you be my friend, Mr. Blake?”

      
His smile was a blinding white slash in that dark beautiful face. “Only if you stop calling me Mr. Blake. I'm Wolf.”

      
“And I'm Eden,” she said gravely, sensing this was far more than a simple exchange of amenities, but uncertain of exactly how to proceed.

      
“All right, Eden,” he replied in a low voice. “We both have names. Now what about him?” He scratched the big mutt's well-chewed ears.

      
“Well, since he's big and has red hair, I think I'll call him after the English king—Rufus.”

      
“Rufus it is, although I don't think with all his battle scars he looks very kingly,” Wolf said, warmed by her smile.

      
“Neither did William Rufus, from what my father's history books tell,” she said conspiratorially. “Nobility is of the soul, not at all involved with mere outer appearance.”

      
As if chorusing agreement, Rufus gave a lusty double woof. Both young people laughed heartily.

      
From her vantage point in the front parlor, Eileen watched the exchange with troubled eyes. For all the mister championed the rights of those poor benighted savages, she was certain he would not want one courting his daughter—especially when he was a penniless drifter and a gunman to boot. Eden had been hurt enough already. Eileen pondered what to do and decided she would talk it over with Maggie tomorrow. Hopefully, by then both she and the mister would be in a better mood!

* * * *

      
Upstairs, Maggie had just stepped into the tub, filled with scented water. The oversized tub had been specially ordered from St. Louis just to accommodate Colin's six-foot-two height.
A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do.
She tried to work up her courage by recalling Eileen's words. No use. She could never seduce her husband.

      
I'm a whore and I've never seduced a man in my life
. What a ridiculously bad joke it was, but true. At the Gilded Lily, her first customer had leaped on her as soon as they entered her room. It had always been that way. Every other man between Omaha and Sonora had found her irresistible. She had been fighting off their advances for the last ten years. Now that she finally found a man she wanted to lie with—her own husband—he refused her.
I've abased my pride enough. No more. If he won't come to me—

      
Her dozing reverie was interrupted by a guttural male oath. Her eyes flew open and met those of the very object of her desires—whiskey eyes, burning her through the translucent veil of water. He had obviously come into the tub room from his bedroom, half undressed, ready to bathe himself. She sat up and seized a towel from beside the tub, then jumped out, backing away from him. He was furious!

      
“You've tried it all, haven't you? Teasing, leaving your buttons unfastened, going without a corset, rubbing up against me. Now, just when Eileen draws me a bath, you slip into my tub and wait mother naked!” Colin could not keep his eyes from devouring her, all wet, her skin glistening with bath oil. The smell of lilies of the valley filled the small bathing room—his private bathing room.

      
“You were supposed to be down at the stables with Riefe checking the new foals,” Maggie said, her pulse hammering as she clutched the thin linen bath towel to her. She could feel the way his eyes swept over her, lustful and angry at the same time. The hard evidence of his desire bulged against his tight denims.

      
“As if you didn't hear Eileen send Rita down to the stables to tell me my bath was drawn. You must've torn your clothes off in your hurry to jump in the water to greet me.”

      
“I did no such thing!” A woman's gotta do... “Eileen!” Her cheeks flamed as she realized what the matchmaking housekeeper had done.

      
“Don't try to blame your little seduction scheme on my housekeeper.”

      
“I've never seduced a man in my life.” She threw back her head defiantly. “I've never had to, and I'm not starting with a husband who's made it more than clear that he doesn't want me.” She steeled her courage and started to walk by him with the towel wrapped haphazardly around her body.

      
“Oh, I want you, all right. You and your whore's tricks have seen to that!” He reached out and grabbed one soft arm, yanking her around to face him, then pulling her against his chest.

      
As his arms crushed the breath from her, Maggie pushed against his chest. “No, Colin! You'll only regret—”

      
“Hell, I've regretted ever meeting you, much less having to marry you; but as long as we
are
married, I'm going to sample the charms you've given so many other men.” He swept her up in his arms and headed back through the open door into his bedroom.

      
“Please—”

      
“Please what? You've been begging for this ever since I first laid eyes on you!” He threw her onto the bed, wincing at the exertion. Even after three weeks, his side ached like hell, but he was too overwrought to care. He began stripping off his remaining clothes. He had already shed boots and shirt before entering the bathing room.

      
Maggie lay on the bed, her heart pounding, watching as his hands worked feverishly at the buttons of his fly. He shoved the tight jeans down and kicked them away. She had often seen his splendid body naked, but before he had always been lying unconscious as she tended his wound. Now, all that remained of it was an angry red scar puckering his right side, one among many older ones, attesting to the hard, dangerous life of an Arizona pioneer.

      
He walked toward her, every muscle in his lean body hard and corded. Her eyes fastened on his phallus, at last freed of the restraints that had separated them during all their previous encounters.

      
A nasty smile spread across his face. “Making comparisons?” He climbed onto the bed and tore the towel from her. “I think it's time I made a few of my own.”

      
His breath fairly caught in his throat. Lord above, she was magnificent! Her beautiful face was flushed and those great blue eyes were wide as they devoured him. Dark auburn hair glowed like a shining curtain around her sun-gilded shoulders; but lower, where her scanty camisa had shielded her from the hot Mexican sun, her skin was creamy ivory, soft and incredibly voluptuous. Large ripe breasts with rosy nipples beckoned a man's hands, a tiny waist and lushly flared hips led to those incredibly long sleek legs with their smoothly turned calves and slender ankles. The dark reddish curls at the juncture of her thighs were partially hidden as she twisted onto one side, trying to prevent his bold inspection.

      
“A bit late in your life for missish vapors, isn't it, Maggie?” he said softly as he ran one large dark hand over the curve of her hip.
I should just roll her onto her back and take her, dammit!
Yet she looked so stricken, almost afraid of him. A look he remembered from the long-buried past rose to haunt him—that of a handsome Apache woman the Aussie had taken captive and pleasured himself with...before breaking her neck and then scalping her.

      
Maggie felt his hesitation and saw the haunted look of pain that flashed in his eyes. “Colin, what is it?” Unconsciously, her hand reached up and she touched his cheek, forgetting her fears.

      
Her touch was like a living flame. The instant her fingertips grazed his cheek he felt the searing jolt, that same maddening fascination that had drawn him to her since he had first laid eyes on her. His hand swept up and enveloped hers, drawing it to his lips.

      
She felt his heat as he leaned over her, then the hot, wet touch of his mouth as he kissed her hand. Like a man mesmerized, he lay her back against the pillow, imprisoning her wrists. Then, he lowered himself over her and those magical lips sought hers.

      
She knew it was madness not to turn away, not to fight him. After it was over, he would hate her even more. But she could not move, only wait for his kiss.

      
Their lips met in fierce, bruising passion as he savaged her mouth, demanding she open to him. She obeyed. He tasted her deeply, hungrily, as his hands slid up and down the ripe curves of her flesh, cupping a breast to weigh its fullness, then teasing the nipple into pebbly hardness.

      
Maggie heard a moan, the sound of passion she had heard girls fake in a dozen bordellos—only this time she was making the noise and it was certainly not false! Somehow, while he had invaded her with his bold, searing kisses and his hands had explored her body, she had wrapped her arms around his shoulders, drawing him closer to her. Maggie could feel his heart pounding furiously and her own answering its racing cadence.

      
The pressure of her long nails kneading into his back drove him wild with wanting her. He cupped the satiny curve of one buttock, then ran his hand over her hip and held it fast as he raised his knee between her legs, separating them. “Open for me, Maggie,” he whispered hoarsely as his aching staff probed the soft curls. He moved lower, trying to guide himself into the heaven he knew awaited him deep inside the silken heat of her flesh.

      
Maggie felt the rough desperation in his caresses and responded to his need with her own, wanting this harsh, enigmatic man to love her. But when he pried her legs apart and prepared to enter her, all the degrading hurt and humiliation of her past rose up, choking her. She had always been dry and tight. The couplings with Whalen had been painful and unsatisfying. The women at the Gilded Lily had given her a jar of butter to ease the passage. But now it had been so long and his taking her this way so unexpected...

      
She grew rigid with fear as his fingers touched her nether lips, opening them and rubbing the hardness of his phallus against the small, tight passage. Mysteriously, it was not dry. She could feel the slickness of flesh gliding on flesh. He probed with the tip of his staff, then gave a shudder of exultation and plunged deep inside her. Her feeling of pressure and tightness was uncomfortable, but not as bad as her fears. Still, her nails dug into his shoulders, trying to communicate that he should go slower.

      
Colin was ravenous for her body. He had desired her from the first time he had laid eyes on her, standing on those stairs in that Sonora bordello. For weeks, she had teased and tantalized him until he lost all reason when he saw her lying naked in that tub with her splendid mane of auburn hair draped over the rim like a curtain of russet satin. Her skin was soft and redolent of lilies of the valley, her body made to drive men wild. He had felt her writhe under his touch, urging him on in spite of her earlier protests—until he moved to complete the act. When he guided his aching staff to the soft wet core of her, she stiffened as if she were a frightened virgin.