Patricia Rice (46 page)

Frances went directly to sleep as she often did this time of night. Dora laid her in the cradle and rocked her to make certain she slept soundly. She was still bent over the task when Pace entered the room.

Nervously, she faced him, the words of confession on her tongue. He merely began unfastening the remainder of the tiny buttons down the front of her bodice.

"It is all my fault," she whispered at the floor as his fingers worked briskly.

He hesitated a moment at these words, then returned to his task. "You cannot carry the world's sins on your shoulders, Dora. I'll go over to the courthouse tomorrow and see what the bastard is up to. I don't want you worrying about it."

She jerked away so quickly he nearly tore the last hook from the silk before he could loosen his grip. She glared at him in the lamplight. Weariness shadowed his eyes, all the playful light of earlier gone. "I am not a simpleton, Pace Nicholls! Don't placate me. If I say it is my fault, then it is my fault. I forged the deed!"

Stunned, he stared at her for a moment. Then he swung her around and untied her sash. The bodice fell from her shoulders, but Dora clung to it.

"Explain, please," he commanded as he stepped back.

"I did. In that letter I sent you! Didn't you even read it?" Even as she protested, Dora realized he hadn't read it. Perhaps he'd never received it. She just knew Pace would never have neglected such a matter had he known. She knew that. She just hadn't wanted to confront him with her sins.

"I don't remember the letter."

She could see the flicker of the lie in his eyes, but she forgave him. That awful time wasn't so long ago that she hadn't forgotten. Still, he could have left her fully dressed instead of standing here clinging to her clothes while she explained. When he took off his coat and waited for her reply, Dora shivered.

"Last winter, after thy father died, they posted the farm for auction for failure to pay taxes."

Pace cursed, flung his coat and waistcoat over a chair, then pulled Dora's bodice from her hands. His fingers expertly found the tapes fastening the crinoline and untied them. She still had the modesty of chemisette, corset, and camisole covering her bosom, but Pace was immoderately hasty about divesting her of her outer clothing. She feared the inner garments would go much more quickly.

Dora tried to put into words what happened that day, how Josie was ill and she had no time to do anything else, her lack of knowledge of the legal processes, but she didn't know how closely Pace listened. He had her crinoline and petticoat and skirts on the floor before he unfastened his shirt.

"You're telling me you went all the way to the county seat in that old buggy when you were what? Six, seven, months gone with child? With no one to protect you but Solly? Were you out of your mind?"

"Robert was there," she said defensively, making no attempt to remove her other garments even as he began on his trouser buttons. "What other choice did I have? Wouldst thou rather I had let them throw thy family into the streets in the middle of winter?"

"It might have done the selfish lot of them good." Muttering at a button caught in a thread, he looked up to see her still dressed. With a curse, he jerked at her camisole ribbon and pulled it away from her corset so he could start on the laces.

Dora smacked his hand away. "Thou doth not mean that. I did what I had to do. Had I talked to thee, thou might have corrected the situation. Now it is too late."

"You're my wife. We have signed and recorded documents. The signature was not a forgery." Pace removed his hands but stared at her fixedly, waiting for her to unfasten the laces.

"I was not thy wife then!" Dora protested. "And Charlie was the true owner then."

"That's a matter we'll look into. We don't have Charlie's exact date of death, and we'll need to know when you signed the register. If that's all they have, then I can fix it."

She looked at him hopefully for just a second, then her face fell. "Gareth is staying with Joe. That won't be all they have."

She wasn't working at the laces fast enough. Pace shoved her hands aside and began on them himself. "Signing as my wife is all that's important. They can haggle over your legal name until they turn blue in the face. You did exactly what you should have."

"But I wasn't thy wife!" she cried. "Joe Mitchell wants this land to build his foolish road, and he'll do whatever he must to get it. How can you stop him?"

Pace stopped and stared down at her. "What road?"

Dora clutched nervously at the open corset. "Sally says he is grabbing all the property between the railroad and the river. He can have only one reason for that."

Pace swung away and pounded his fist into his palm.

"I should have seen it! Damn, I'll nail him directly to the courthouse wall. I'm going to skin him alive. I'll pull his entrails out and feed them to the hogs. Damn and blast that—"

Dora's silence warned him he went too far. He swung back to face her. "I can do this, Dora. I can bring Joe Mitchell to his knees. Will you believe me?"

He stood tall and somber in the middle of their bedroom floor, his shirt unbuttoned and open, his overlong hair falling across his brow. Behind the drawn features of the man she could still see the light and eagerness of the boy he had once been. The war had not killed that boy entirely then. She trusted the boy who tried to do right more than the large male creature whose physical potency overpowered her.

But knowing the one contained the other, she let her corset fall to the floor. She stood before him in skimpy chemisette and drawers and stockings. When Pace didn't reach for her, Dora went to him. His arms closed tightly around her, lifting her from the floor.

"Are you certain, Dora? You could be a rich lady and live in castles with dozens of servants at your beck and call. Will you regret that someday when you have babies crying and toddlers fighting and Annie packs up and walks out?"

"I made that decision a long time ago, Pace. It's foolish to ask it of me now." Dora wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth for his kiss and prayed that he would give it to her. She wanted him now, before the doubts built a wall between them.

Pace's mouth found Dora's and settled there, plucking lightly at first, then with a little more abandon as she crushed closer. She rubbed her breasts against his chest, and he groaned deep in his throat, pulling her against him. She could feel his arousal brushing at the juncture of her legs where he held her, but the physical fears had dissipated with his touch. His tongue parted her lips, and she surrendered this gladly.

It had been so long, she'd nearly forgotten the sweet bliss of his kisses. Her senses filled with the man-scent of him, the hard crush of his arms around her, the taste of his brandy-flavored tongue. He hadn't taken time to shave before dinner, and she could feel the rough brush of his beard against her cheek. The sandpaper texture excited her as much as the way his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her buttocks through the thin muslin of her drawers.

"Please, Pace," she murmured as his kisses fled down her jaw to her throat. She didn't know for what she pled, but he seemed to understand. He lowered her feet to the floor again, and brushed aside her chemisette to cup her breast in his palm. She shuddered at the contact as flesh met flesh, and her knees nearly buckled.

"I won't stop with making love to you once," he warned gruffly, his lips vibrating against the tender skin of her throat. "I'm going to put myself inside you and stay there until dawn, I think. At least dawn. I might never get enough of you. You won't be able to stand when I'm finished. Are you sure you're ready?"

His whispered words made her knees fold. She had never been very good with words, but Pace said everything she could possibly say. She pulled his mouth back to hers and let him carry her to the bed. She could never have walked there on her own.

Drawers and chemisette dropped by the wayside, tugged by impatient fingers. Dora arched and gave a helpless cry when Pace lay beside her and slid down her body to kiss behind her knees as he drew off her stockings. When he didn't immediately return to her side but began kissing his way back up, stroking her inner thighs, licking at sensitive skin, she nearly screamed with helplessness.

His knowing hands reached the tips of her breasts before his mouth settled on her belly. She writhed with the need to dig her fingers into the hard strength of his arms, to bring him to her, to hold him, but she could do nothing. When he had her breasts full and aching with pleasure, sending trails of burning need to the place between her thighs, Pace leaned over and kissed her there. Dora exploded into shattering bits and pieces of sparkling light.

He drove into her then, not giving her time to think or react, just shoving deep inside until she arched and twisted and met his thrusts with a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with who she was or where they were or anything but the animal need for mating.

Pace came quickly, filling her with the hot gush of his seed as the spasms overtook them both. As he promised, he didn't leave, but began the ritual all over again.

He kissed away her murmured protests. He filled his hands with her breasts and spoke words of beauty to them, words that caressed her as sensually as his fingers. Dora had never felt so loved and cherished in all her life, and she threw back her head and let him do as he would. Pace made her alive as nothing or no one else in this world could. She didn't know how she could make him understand this, but she would try.

Every particle of her skin tingled, her stomach muscles clenched, and her insides burned with the desire for life, with the need for Pace. She stroked the strong arms holding her, feeling the bulge of work-hardened muscle. She smoothed her hands over the formidable curve of his shoulders and down the taut planes of his chest. She found his nipples and made him roar with her touch. And she dug her fingers into the tight flesh of his buttocks as he drove deep inside her again.

They were one together, united and paired against the world. Together, they could do anything. He promised her that with his body, and she believed him. She took him inside herself and held him there, and the wounds of the past began to heal with this acceptance.

* * *

Dora slept on her side, and the rosy light of dawn gave a pink tinge to the deep curve of her waist and hip as Pace threw aside the sheet. The small of her back was so slender, he could span it with his hand, but his hand was more interested in spanning the heavy mound of her exposed breast.

But he had ridden her hard last night. She needed the sleep. Frances was just stirring. She would coo to herself for a long while before she began her daily demands. Dora deserved this moment of rest. Pace returned the sheet to her shoulders and climbed from the bed.

He felt almost human again. For months, maybe even years, he'd lived with a raging monster gnawing at his guts. The monster was calm now, curled up and sleeping in a cage that Dora had somehow helped him erect. He had a perversely stubborn wife, but at this moment, he was grateful for it.

Pace had to keep from whistling as he shrugged into his shirt and coat. Even the ache in his arm seemed less today. Had Charlie or his father been here, they would have laughed to see Pace so satiated and content with just a good bedding. They would never have understood that the woman herself made him feel this way. He had a woman who wanted him and him alone.

That on its own made him swell with pride. The knowledge that she had willingly forsaken riches for him added spice to the feeling. Knowing the depth of Dora's character and intelligence and that still she had chosen him made him almost heady with joy.

They hadn't exchanged words of love. Pulling on his boots, Pace acknowledged that. They'd scarcely had time to learn each other's bodies. They would have time for the rest later. For all he knew, love was something poets had invented. He couldn't remember ever experiencing it himself. But he would give her those words because she deserved them. Maybe even tonight he would tell her.

Today, he had more important business.

He grabbed a biscuit and a piece of ham from the kitchen on his way out to the stable. He caught Jackson on the way to the field and gave him a hasty explanation of the sheriff's visit. The taut black skin over Jackson's jaw pulled tighter yet, but he nodded curtly and headed out to the fields on his own. Pace continued down the road.

He had Robert McCoy dragged out of bed. Once the other man had enough black coffee poured into him. Pace gave him explanations and instructions. Robert pounded the table a few times in fury, but agreed without hesitation. Their politics might not agree, but their sense of justice did.

Pace rode away with the sack of deeds and papers Robert had confiscated from Homer's desk. He'd only had to scan them briefly to see the truth of Dora's surmise. He would go through deed books and maps to be certain. Some of the papers were only for small parcels and not complete farms. Pace suspected greed and ease of attainment dictated how much Joe and his cronies went after. The only surprise he discovered was the signature of Josie's father as owner of several of the newly acquired acres.

It began to make sense as he thought about it while riding toward the courthouse. Ethan Andrews was cautious with his money. Joe Mitchell liked risks and kept himself overextended. Joe always needed cash. Ethan always had it. Ethan also had an unattached daughter and Joe was a bachelor. Little by little, the pieces clicked together. Pace didn't like the picture that formed, and the arrival of Dora's half brother muddied it, but he had a place to start. That was all he needed.

At the courthouse, he set the clerks to making copies of records to be sealed and notarized while he dragged out the deed books and settled in with a map of the county. By the time the records were ready, he had his own copy of the map drawn and the deeds in his possession marked in neat little plots that made a broken line straight from the river to the train station in the next county.

His and Jackson's farms marked part of the broken spaces in the line. Pace sent his father and brother prayers of thanks for the foresight in leaving the farm to him rather than to Josie. He may have hated them at times, but they weren't entirely stupid men. Or somewhere along the line they had begun to suspect Joe's plans.