The Men of Pride County: The Rebel (13 page)

She paused to lean inside the door to her father’s bedroom. The absence of his gusty snores told her he was still awake, so she whispered fiercely, “Don’t think you’ve been forgiven,” before leaving the house and placing herself in the care of the chosen honor guard.

The surprising cool of the late evening faded the burn of humiliation from Juliet’s cheeks. It also helped that Noble remained a silent shadow at her side. She wasn’t sure she could endure any pithy comments in regard to their situation while vulnerably in her nightwear.

The stream ran less than a half-mile from the fort, a runoff from the Colorado River and the only source of water within a hundred miles. Daily expeditions from the post brought back a limited supply from the tributary, just enough to quench the thirst of man and beast and to provide scant leftovers for necessary washing. Juliet carried four hide skins behind her saddle. Each day she personally fetched the nectar needed for her garden to flourish and her plants to grow, since there was never enough from the Crowleys’ allotted ration to spare. First she would see to her own revitalizing, then she would attend her greens.

The gurgle of the stream won nickers of anticipation from their horses as they grew near. Juliet’s own eagerness overwhelmed earlier reluctance
as she guided her mount through the tangled scrub to the sandy bank of the creek. Noble followed unquestioningly as she continued along the winding edge until she found the spot she sought, a bend where the waters deepened and slowed on the outer curve, where low mesquite trees afforded protection. Eagerly, she slid off her horse and passed Noble the reins along with a warning glare that she’d brook no nonsense from him.

“I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. You can wait with the horses over there.” She gestured to the other side of the mesquite thicket. From there he’d have no opportunity to steal a look at her.

“Take your time, Miz Crowley. Enjoy your bath. I’ll keep an eye out for hostiles.”

The fact that he called her the remote “Miss Crowley” instead of the familiar “Juliet” made it easier for her to relax and even offer him a faint smile.

“I doubt you’ll be seeing any hostiles, Major, not this close to our troops. Just make sure that’s all you’re planning to see.” Her brow arched pointedly.

He raised his hand to protest his innocence. “May God strike me blind if I’m lying.”

“
I’ll
strike you harder than that.”

He grinned down at her. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep my eyes on my duty.”

And just for a moment, his gaze canted downward, a slow, thorough caress from head to toe and back, naming her as the duty foremost
in his mind. The far from impersonal look made it hard for Juliet to draw a decent breath from the sudden tightening through her chest. She scowled at him.

“Stay over there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Then he added in a satin-smooth aside, “Call if you need anything.”

Like help reaching my back?

Juliet swallowed down her expectations, the gesture dry and as raw as the smolder in his gaze. Then he nudged his mount ahead, hers trailing behind it, and went to his appointed watch.

Determined to dismiss him from mind, as if such a feat were possible, Juliet let the inviting murmur of the current entice her to the water’s edge. After stepping out of her boots, she dipped a toe beneath the glassy surface and gave a delighted shiver. Positively delicious. No more delays. Her robe hanging on a thorny shrub, her blanket folded within an easy stretch, Juliet slipped into the stream.

Paradise.

The sensation of her damp muslin underclothes hugging her skin was next to being naked, wringing a long, low sigh from Juliet as she sank shoulder-deep into the water. With moonlight shining a silvery lavender along the surface and cool eddies swirling about her form beneath it, it took little encouragement for her imagination to suggest the feel of a lover’s hands. Or for her seditious heart to put a name to him.

Noble Banning
.

With only the nightbird’s song to disturb her dreams, Juliet let them wander where her practical mind refused to give them license. To the wickedly handsome face and the pale fire of his stare, a stare that on more than one occasion had devoured her whole. To the memory of a broad, hair-matted chest that incited a feverish wondering as to how this diamond-cool water would look glistening upon it. Wondering how it would feel beneath her palms … how it would feel to taste the sinfully shaped mouth that haunted her nights. To be lost in his kisses, to his touch, to his possession …

The sound of her own wayward moan shocked her back to her senses. Grabbing up the precious bar of French milled soap, she began a hurried scrubbing, willing her overly sensitized skin to cease its quivering. However, the scent of lavender rose about her, a cloud of sensory bliss distracting her from her haste. How wanton and wonderful to feel the bar gliding up wet arms, between the valley of her breasts, over the wisps of muslin clinging to her thighs.

Was Noble watching? She let her hair trail back into the water, feeling the heavy pull of it in the current.

Let him look. Let him dream even as she dreamed of what would never—could never—happen.

Noble was dreaming all right.

Had she stripped to the skin before sinking into the stream?

The thought of her nude and buoyant figure cast in pearlescent silhouette beneath the stars goaded him almost beyond restraint. The sound of a woman’s sighs pulled him from frustration to near frenzy. Carbine clutched in sweat-slicked palms, he prowled the underbrush, almost hoping some luckless critter might appear so he’d have cause to vent his tensions.

Did the woman know she was driving him mad?

Were she other than Juliet Crowley, he would have answered an unqualified yes. But there was a sweet naïveté to Juliet, an unassuming honesty that appealed to him as powerfully as her lushly pouting lips. To have both … he could picture no greater heaven.

No darker purgatory.

Such thoughts were torture, nothing more. He couldn’t act upon them even if she invited him to. Which she wouldn’t. Though he’d been receiving enough subtle signals from her to rouse a man from a coma, he suspected she wasn’t taunting him purposefully.

Remember your duty, man. Remember your cause. Remember why you brought your men out to this forsaken land a world away from home and hearth and hope
.

It was to find a traitor—not to slake his own desires.

If he forsook his obligations now for personal pleasures, how could he return to Pride County and hold up his head? How could he act as if he were any different from his father?

How could he demand sacrifices from others without making a few of his own?

Pride County was full of women. Any one of them would be glad to take whatever he was willing to give.

But it wasn’t any one of them he wanted here in this lonesome wilderness where seductive sighs beckoned him into abandoning his pride. At the moment, there was little else left him.

Taking a deep, purifying breath and wishing he had one of the colonel’s good cigars, Noble continued his stony pose of sentinel until a sudden shrill cry from behind him brought him crashing toward the stream, heart in his throat.

When he didn’t see Juliet in the placid water, frantic thoughts and a tearing guilt collided in his brain. How had he let something happen to her? Then a fine webbing appeared on the stream’s surface, and Juliet’s head broke through. As she gasped and sputtered, Noble’s knees went wobbly in relief.

“Are you all right?”

At the sight of him standing at the water’s edge, Juliet ducked back down until her chin bobbed on the current.

“W-what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here!”

“You cried out. I thought you might need—”

“I slipped on a rock. I don’t need … you.”

Her words failed, then faded.

Their gazes fell unbidden to the lips shaping those anxious words, and the moment stretched out beyond discomfort to a strange sort of inevitability. Knowing duty demanded that he withdraw, Noble continued to linger, fascinated by the provocative way Juliet moistened her mouth in uncalculated nervousness.

She was wearing a filmy something or other. Hints of eyelet lace threaded through with delicate pink ribbon showed at her smooth shoulders. The effect was so startlingly feminine on one as practical as Juliet that it hit him low, like a blow to the solar plexus.

Because he couldn’t just stand there sucking wind, he asked, “How’s the water?”

“Wonderful.” A pause, then a husky, “Come in and see for yourself.”

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, her mouth a teasing pucker. “And why is that, Major? Certainly both you and your clothing could use the wash.”

“I’m not disputing that fact. But I’m on duty—”

“Which are you more afraid of, Noble? The Indians or my father?”

He didn’t hesitate. “You.”

Her blue eyes rounded in surprise, then became
all sultry invitation once more. “I’m just a simple girl. What does a sophisticated gallant like yourself have to fear from me?”

“Ah, such words as were spoken by Helen of Troy and Delilah.” His gaze followed the movement of the current as it lapped about the curve of her breasts. Oh, to be that unassuming stream …

Her soft laughter played like the rush of water over rough rocks, its low-pitched music undeniably sensual. “Are you afraid I’m a danger to your life—or to your manhood?”

“Both.”

That pleased her. “I’ll avert my eyes to preserve your chastity—had you any to protect.” She splashed at him, the spray darkly dappling his pant legs. “Come in. Consider it an order. Or don’t you take orders from women?”

“Those are the ones I enjoy obeying the most.”

A slight frown shaped her lips, then she pushed herself away from the creek bottom to ride the current on her back. The sylphlike movement brought her breasts and sweetly rounded thighs above the surface. Wet muslin did nothing to conceal what it was meant to cover.

The blade of desire twisted low in Noble’s belly. And he considered her offer for one beat, then two.

“Hell.”

It was both oath and prediction. He levered
his feet out of his boots. He draped his uniform shirt over them, then, after one last moment of hesitation, he laid his carbine on the bank and waded in. His worry that he’d gone suddenly insane was quickly washed away by the refreshing sluice of the water.

“I told you it was wonderful,” Juliet said as she rolled onto her belly and glided closer. She extended the soap. He took a sniff, then shook his head.

“I’m sure your father likes smelling it on you, but I don’t think the same would apply to me.”

“I don’t think he would mind as much as you think,” was her mysterious reply.

“Your father doesn’t mind you bathing with men?”

“He likes you.” Displeasure tugged at her response, but Noble didn’t notice. His thoughts were elsewhere.

“And he’s said nothing to Miles when he’s returned to the post smelling of lavender?”

Her mood clouded. “Miles never has.”

“I’m certain he wouldn’t object to playing in the water with you.”

“Miles doesn’t play, Major. He takes everything very seriously—too seriously.”

Now it was Noble’s turn to be vague. “And you don’t want to be serious with Miles?”

“Not with anyone.”

She sent a wave of water at his head, then as he sputtered and cleared his eyes, she swam lithely away. He chuckled but didn’t pursue
her. This was her game and he’d let her set the rules. He ignored her long enough to rinse his face and hair, wishing for soap that wouldn’t leave him smelling like a Saturday night whorehouse to his commander’s discerning nose.

But Juliet wasn’t to be ignored.

She bobbed up before him, rising like Venus from the water. With her height they stood almost eye to eye. Hers locked into his with a purposeful intensity.

“We’d might as well get this out of the way. I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

Before he could ask, she made herself very clear. Her palms pressed to his lean cheeks, holding his face between them. Her mouth was on his before he had time to blink. And before he could react, she slipped away. Though she’d said she wasn’t serious, there was no playfulness in her stare.

“I had to know,” she told him simply, as if explanation was needed.

“You don’t know anything yet.”

And he reached for her to prove it.

His arm curved around her waist, pulling her toward him through the slight resistance the water made. She made none. Her eyes were closed, her face lifted in anticipation of what he’d teach her.

The lesson was beyond anything she could have wildly imagined.

He tasted of heaven and danger. Alternately soft and persuasive then urgent in his demand,
Noble’s kiss answered everything in one explosive moment. When his tongue touched to her lips, she opened them for him with an eager abandon, at the same time lassoing him with her arms about his neck to intensify their union.

It was just kissing. It didn’t have to be more. Sensations more powerful than anything either had ever experienced engulfed them. She melded to his slick, hard surfaces, erasing the separation between them to learn all she could through the scant barrier of their clothing. What she discovered only made her anxious to find out more. She responded greedily to the plunge of his kisses, gobbling them with uncontrolled urgency as fingers twined and twisted through wet hair.

Finally, shaken, a bit scared yet wildly exhilarated, Juliet let her head fall against his shoulder so that she could grab for breath. For a moment, she was content to ride the labored movement of his chest as her fingers continued to ply among the hair at his nape and stroke along his rough jaw. Then, because she couldn’t stand not knowing, she leaned back to study his expression.

He didn’t reveal much, and that concerned her. Where she was all trembly and loose-limbed, he was yet contained and watching her carefully. She wet her lips, tasting him there and taking strength from it.

“You think this was a mistake?” The gruff
texture of her voice begged him to deny it. He couldn’t.